Mbale Whiteman exploiting the vulnerable

Phillip Monk came to Uganda in 2006 as a tourist, and stayed. He travelled to many parts of Uganda. When he came to Mbale, he found “love” in a Mugisu woman, Nabushawo Beatrice. He led the locals in Mbale to believe that he could save their desperate children by teaching them how to play music instruments.

He also promised to pay school fees for some of them. These included young girls. The desperate parents believed him and their daughter Nabushawo, of course. Nabushawo would interpret to the desperate parents in Lugisu what Phillip Monk had spoken in English.

An English man was now their “in-law,” having married Nabushawo. He did not only seek to marry Nabushawo for love. Phillip also wanted to attain Ugandan citizenship by marriage. This Ugandan citizenship goal, he achieved quickly. The stage was now set for him to commence his criminal enterprise at the expense of desperate parents and children in Mbale.

He registered his Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) as a cover-up for his criminal activities. “Mbale Schools Band” was born, with Phillip Monk and his wife, Nabushawo, as directors. He begun to record and photograph these desperate children playing music instruments.

Phillip would dress them in second hand clothes and shoes, and he would video record them showing how much the clothes, shoes, and upkeep cost him. “How much is your shirt?” “How much are your shoes?” “How much is your breakfast, lunch, and supper?” Phillip would ask.

The children would answer with amounts that Phillip had coached the children to state on the video he was recording. Phillip also told the children to state that they were orphans, yet they had parents. He would then post these videos on the website of “Mbale School’s Band” and other internet forums.

He would also dress some of them in School “Uniform.”  This was to show white donors in Britain and Europe generally, that he was not only teaching them to play music instruments, but also paying for their school fees in local schools in Mbale town.  That is not true. He received lots of money on behalf of the children, which he would later put to personal use.

In order to avoid these personal purchases from donor money being traced directly to him, Phillip put the purchases, in his wife’s names. Nabushawo, a former secretary in a failing NGO, Foundation for Development of Needy Communities (FDNC) was suddenly an owner of prime properties in Mbale city. This was courtesy of the money Phillip Monk was receiving from unsuspecting donors from Europe.

FDNC collapsed eventually because Phillip Monk blackmailed the founder Sam Watalaso before donors. In 2008, Phillip had started a music brass band at Highway Secondary School in Sironko. Its director Herbert Mulekwa found that Phillip Monk was luring young girls into sex.  Mulekwa immediately expelled Monk from his school because of the risks this would pose to his school.

Monk would come up with all sorts of tricks to collect money from donors. Today, he announces on his website that he will be taking the children to a music tour to Sri Lanka for the CHOGM event in 2013, the donors send money and as soon he collects enough money, he says that the music tour will not happen because of a flimsy reason.

Another prime property in Nabushawo’s name! Tomorrow, he starts off a donation campaign to take children on a music tour to United Kingdom. The donors send to him money generously. Phillip procures passports for children; he posts the passports on his website. Donors continue to donate money for the United Kingdom music tour for poor kids. Suddenly after collecting enough money from donors, he finds a reason for the music tour not to happen.

He purchases more prime properties in his wife’s name. The desperate, poor children are being used by Phillip to acquire personal illicit wealth in his wife’s name.

Not content with the money he was getting from donors, he begun a “war” against other school or charity brass bands that were getting money from the same donors as he was. To accomplish this next phase of his criminal enterprise, he set out to be the only “Ugandan citizen” who was in charge of all the school brass bands in Uganda.

To achieve his mischievous plans to out compete other brass bands for donor money, he enlisted the assistance of young poor kids. Some of these children included Innocent Wodonya, George Mutambo, Isaac Nangoye, Wangota Anthony, Stephen Masaba, among his “army” of agents.

Phillip would send these young children to Mbale town streets to buy SIM cards in stranger’s names. He would then use these SIM cards to open up anonymous Facebook accounts to blackmail and soil the reputation of competing brass bands in Mbale, before the donors in Europe. He managed to collapse brass bands like muse quality who closed in 2014.

He also attempted to blackmail Elgon Youth Band, which is still surviving with donors who trust its band directors. With these illegal games, he has now created another school Brass band in Iganga in his quest to take over Uganda, with brass bands.

Several cases of crimes have been reported to Mbale Police but are never fully investigated because Phillip who has a “deep pocket” from donor money, bribes his way out of them. Uganda must be saved from these criminals from Europe who purport to be helping poor African children yet they come here to enrich themselves after failing to make it in life in Europe.