Mr Fred K. Bamwesigye has been appointed as the substantive Director General of Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA).
Mr Bamwesigye, who has been serving in the position in acting capacity, replaces Dr David Kakuba Mpago whose tenure ended in June 2020.
“We join the aviation fraternity in congratulating Mr. Fred K. Bamwesigye following appointment as Director General of UCAA. We wish him tremendous success in steering the Authority in ‘maintaining the highest standards of safety, security and service in civil aviation,” UCAA said in a statement.
Mr Bamwesigye beat Ms Olive Birungi Lumonya and Prof Tom David Wasswa to the job following interviews.
Mr Bamwesigye, Ms Lumonya and Prof Wasswa emerged the three best candidates from a team of 21 people who sat the interviews for the position in March 2021.
Ms Lumonya had scored 80.7 per cent, Prof Wasswa 74.7 per cent, and Mr Bamwesigye 73.4 per cent.
The recruitment process suffered a glitch in June after two people, Mr Boaz Nabimanya and Mr Bernard Ayesiga filed a suit in the Civil Division of the High Court, seeking an order barring CAA from “proceeding with the recruitment and appointment process of a director general and director for human resource management” pending determination of a motion for a judicial review, which was still pending in the same court.
The two argued that the board should have followed the same procedure it followed when one of the former managing directors, Mr Rama Makuza, was succeeded by his deputy, Mr Kakuba Mpago.
In this case, they argued, Mr Fred Bamwesigye, who was Mr Kakuba Mpango’s deputy and has been acting director general, should have simply been elevated to fill the post.
The country’s aviation regulator manages Entebbe International Airport and a host of other civilian airports and aerodromes, including tourist airfields such as Pakuba in Murchison Falls National Park, and the main airstrip in Kidepo Valley National Park.