Uganda’s Minister of State for Labour, Employment, and Industrial Affairs, Colonel (RTD), Charles Okello Engola, was shot dead at his home in a Kampala suburb on Tuesday morning.
Deputy Minister Ronald Otem was also seriously injured and taken to Mulago Hospital for treatment.
“He (Engola) was shot at his residence in Kyanja by one of his bodyguards who allegedly fired several shots at close range. He fled from the scene up to the trading centre at Kyanja, Ring Road where he entered a salon and also shot himself dead,” police spokesperson, Fred Enanga told journalists in Kampala.
The shooter has been identified as Private Wilson Sabetti.
Security forces cordoned off the crime scene while the police began investigating the incident. The Deputy Inspector General of Police, Maj Gen Geoffrey Tumusiime Katsigazi, and the director of the Criminal Investigation Department, Maj Tom Magambo were the first security chiefs to arrive at the minister’s home.
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An eyewitness had previously claimed the bodyguard was complaining that the dead minister owed him unpaid salary for several months when he shot in the air to alert civilians in the town of Kianga just before the gun was pointed at him.
Labor and Equality Minister Betty Ambete, who was one of the first government officials to arrive at the Angolan’s home after the shooting, told reporters Sabete was “a new bodyguard”.
He has been working as a bodyguard for a month. He came from Bombo and joined the other security forces assigned to the Minister’s Department for Equality and Labour.
The police spokesman Mr. Enanga said it was too early to confirm the motive for the shooting.
“The investigation is currently in the early stages of review…We don’t want to speculate into the motive of the shooting until we have confirmed,” the police spokesman said.
According to Chris Barriomonsi, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and National Public Relations, the minister was on his way to a cabinet meeting when he was shot.
