By Mulengera Reporters
Since his arrest and prosecution, which commenced September last year, Lawrence Ssemakula (58) has been on interdiction and his position as Accountant General has never been substantively occupied up to this day.
Along with Commissioner Treasury Services at the Finance Ministry Jennifer Muhuruzi (aged 55), Ssemakula was charged with negligence allegedly because he didn’t put in place mitigation measures and systems to safeguard public funds by a group of junior officers at the Finance Ministry, which resulted into acts of corruption and financial loss being occasioned to his employer, the GoU.
The officers, over whom the duo is supposed to have exercised supervisory authority and have since been charged along, include assistant commissioner accounts Pedson Twesigomwe (45), senior information technology officer Tony Yawe (46), IT systems officer Paul Nkalubo Lumala (40), senior accountant Deborah Dorothy Kusiima (33), accountant Judith Ashaba (43), research assistant accountant Betina Nayebare (31) ad IT specialist Mark Kasiiku (33).
The prosecution case is that between 9th and 11th September last year Twesigomwe, Kusiima and Lumala connived to commit the offence of corruption inside the finance ministry premises when they allegedly covered up for the irregular payment of $6.1m (roughly Shs22.5bn) in favour of Roadway Company Ltd, which was never the authorized or intended payee.
Leveraging his IT skills, Yawe allegedly altered payment instructions resulting into Shs22.5bn being paid (using electronic means) to Roadway Company Ltd as opposed to International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank, which was the intended recipient.
Kasiiku is alleged to have manipulated the payment instructions relating to $391,720 (roughly Shs1.4bn) in favour of MJS International London as opposed to IDA which was the intended recipient. The six junior officers were also charged with commission of money laundering acts, contrary to the provisions of Anti-Money Laundering Act.
During the Monday court session, the Anti-Corruption Court Chief Magistrate Racheal Nakyazze rebuked the state prosecution team led by Chief State Attorney Richard Birivumbuka for being unserious and lukewarm towards their work. The Chief Magistrate made it clear that the 6 months period, within which prosecution was supposed to conclude investigations and enable the criminal trial to commence, had ended without the state getting ready.
She made it clear the prosecution case risked being dismissed and gave the state one more chance whereafter she will recommend the case to the High Court for dismissal. Defense lawyers, led by former Deputy Attorney General Mwesigwa Rukutana, demanded that the case gets dismissed for want of prosecution since the state had failed to present any serious evidence against the accused persons for now more than a whole year.
Broadly speaking, the unseriousness with which the state has approached and gone about this case thus far has embarrassed the government of Uganda and portrayed its prosecutors as lukewarm, casual and unsophisticated. The casual approach that has so far been depicted causes the GoU to be trivialized and potentially written off by would-be development partners and foreign investors as extremely unserious.
Some of the defence lawyers and activists from anti-corruption agencies have gone as far as demanding that someone gets severely sanctioned for misleading the GoU into such circus. The defence lawyers have not ruled out suing the state in the end and pursue damages for malicious prosecution.
This type of suit is the appropriate step for the aggrieved former defendant to take to get remedy against malicious prosecution. “Majority of the officials on trial are young men and women who have a right to move on with their lives and having employment in order to be able to fend for their young families. None of them should have their time wasted in such a manner,” asserted one of the defence lawyers after the Monday court session.
There are also concerns that some of the officials the state ended up prosecuting are actually the ones who initially raised the red flag about what the media ended up christening ‘the Bank of Uganda heist.’
One defence lawyer asserted that as such, such officers deserve commendation for their whistle blowing act, which saw them raise the red flag, as opposed to being condemned to such an embarrassing and career-destroying criminal trial. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
