The investigations have been prompted by a report of the District Public Accounts Committee which highlighted deceitful expenditure and syndicated misappropriation of public funds in different departments of the district.
The Inspectorate of Government has taken up investigations
into allegations of embezzlement of public funds committed by different heads
of departments in Lwengo district.
The investigations have been prompted by a report of the
District Public Accounts Committee which highlighted deceitful expenditure
and syndicated misappropriation of public funds in different departments of
the district.
The District Public Accounts Committee chaired by
Joram Mugume observed in its report that the
district lost close to 100 million Shillings under unclear circumstances and the
responsible officers could not provide proper accounting records when asked by the committee.
According to the report, 10.4 million Shillings meant
for Nakyenyi Secondary School under the Universal Secondary Education-USE
program was misappropriated by the district Education Department and another 43 million Shillings allocated to
the district under the Discretionary Development Equalization Grant-DDEG
program was misappropriated by the officers in the District Planning
Department.
The same department also allegedly spent 4.7
million Shillings on repairs of the previous district administration offices in
Kyetume yet, according to the committee, no work was done on-site.
Similarly, 3.74 million Shillings was lost in falsified expenditures
as facilitation for Agricultural Extension staff in sub-counties. 7.6
million Shillings was spent on unspecified purposes at the district
headquarters, and 9.7 million Shillings was paid out in form of outstanding debts to unspecified
suppliers, among other accountability queries.
Alfred Atulinde, a Senior Inspectorate Officer
attached to the Masaka Zonal Office, says they have picked interest in the
report and have commenced investigations into the allegations. He confirms that the Inspectorate has preferred to investigate
the officers mentioned in the report and accordingly deal with them
should they be found culpable of embezzlement.
Atulinde says that their team is going to thoroughly study
that report and carry out fresh investigations about its details, and where
possible, cause recovery of the lost monies. “We have asked the officers concerned to provide us with the
whole report, and this will give us proper direction in the investigations and probably
our next course of action,” he noted.
Lwengo district Chairperson
Ibrahim Al-malik Kitatta says they welcome the investigations, saying it will rid the district of all underlying
corruption tendencies that are said to be deep-rooted in some staff.
“We welcome the investigations, and we are ready
to corporate with any government institutions that wish to help us in the pursuit
to end corruption in this district,” he says.
According to Kitatta, the same report was recently shared
with the Ministries of Local Government and Public Service for action against the implicated officers.
Lwengo Chief Administrative Officer
George Ntulume declined to comment both about the investigations and the report.
Records at the Inspectorate of Government, show that in 2022,
cases worth 500 billion Shillings were investigated, 30 billion Shillings
recovered and about 50 public servants were interdicted in cases related to
corruption.
