The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives has watered down claims that the Permanent Secretary, Ms. Geraldine Ssali slapped Ms. Sandra Karyn Aneno who works at the Ministry as a Senior Legal Officer after an altercation.
Since morning, a number of online and mainstream media have been publishing articles claiming that Ms. Ssali slapped Ms. Aneno last Friday following a heated argument. They said the conflict escalated over an office space for the recently appointed Minister of State for Trade, Gen. Wilson Mbasu Mbadi.
However, according to the Senior Human Resource Officer at the Ministry of Trade, Ms. Victoria Nansikombi, last week the management took a decision to optimize work space and allocate sufficient space for Gen. Mbadi and his staffers where the Permanent Secretary made several visits to all floors of Farmers House to reorganize the additional space for the purpose.
“In total, 6 offices were identified as part of this reorganization where some were being painted over the weekend, others were made empty with records having to be shifted off site, others with Ministry staff had to be relocated to other offices to create additional space. These included all support staff like drivers, security personnel, cleaners and some Ministry staff,” Ms. Nansikombi said.
“All staff affected complied without any challenges, except one staff; Ms. Sandra Karyn Aneno, the Senior Legal Officer who refused to comply and instead opted to use abusive language (profanities) against the management team led by the Permanent Secretary in the midst of colleagues at work.”
Ms. Nansikombi further noted that Ms. Aneno’s unnecessary aggression caused the security team of the Permanent Secretary and that of the Ministry to restrain her from getting physical while unfortunately continuing to shout and insult the team head.
“The management later resolved to interdict Ms. Aneno and have the matter comprehensively investigated,”she said.
“The officer has instead resorted to using media in an attempt to blackmail management in their quest to investigate the matter. The criminal aspects of the matter was immediately reported to police by the management to handle. There was no no slapping involved at any one time and the New Vision publication and its readers is hereby notified on the same,” she added.
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