By Mulengera Reporters
As we reported on Saturday, the IGG has intensified investigations into how the top officials at Uganda Law Reform Commission (ULRC) spent Shs17bn in the last 24 months which they now can’t account for. Trouble began December last year when the President prompted AG William Byaruhang to ask BoD Chair Vastina Rukimirana to interdict CEO Lucas Omara Abong and other Commissioners constituting top management. The matter was initially investigated by the OAG but the IGG has had to come in after being petitioned by whistle blowers claiming that John Muwanga’s auditors weren’t impartial enough to do a good job. The IGG has since started on the job with enthusiasm and the approach is to assume all employees have a case to answer and therefore must be interogated. The IGG took this approach after Ag Accountant Leonard Baguma reneged on urgently submitting all the required accountability documents on grounds that he is too busy simultaneously holding 4 portfolios having to stand in for people who are out on interdiction.
THE H/WRITING EXPERT
IGG sources say from the interogations conducted so far, it has emerged that a top Kampala handwriting expert had been contracted to always forge people’s signatures to enable the ULRC top officials to account for billions of shillings in ghost workshops and JLOS project activities that were never undertaken. The handwriting expert will be summoned after the Easter week to answer for his actions. He has allegedly been getting a monthly retainer as this had become a regular assignment. Many of the employees interogated have been shocked to see hundreds of millions that were expended under the guise of facilitating project activities using their forged signatures. The IGG is also looking into claims that some employees at two city hotels are complicit in this rampaging forgery of receipts and accountability problems. One of the hotels (ES) is located in Ntinda on the road after Spear Motors and the other (EMP) Hotel is located in Najjera and it’s owner is a close relative to one of the big officials now out on interdiction. The IGG will be asking hotel staff to defend the monies their respective employers are purpoted to have received for hosting workshops that never took place. Some of the interogated staff have confessed to the IGG detectives being asked to sign onto fake accountability documents to raise Shs50m per quarter as sweeteners to wet the beaks of external auditors. This revelation has shocked the IGG investigators and more information is being corroborated about the same. The IG G team members are seeking to establish the truth behind claims that some members of the external audit team have been on a quarterly retainer of Shs50m not to expose the rot at ULRC. The IGG is also appalled by reports that some of the interdicted officials have continued being signatories onto the ULRC bank accounts including the staff SACCO account in Housing Finance Bank which is why some of the interdicted officials have easily been accessing SACCO money. The IGG is also intrigued by the fact that Commission money continues to be spent on interdicted employees as if nothing happened including two powerful ladies doing their MBA training at Bombo road-based EASAMI. Also being investigated is a top ULRC official who is rapidly constructing what is destined to become the biggest hotel facility in the Seeta-Mukono neighborhood. The chairperson Vastina Rukimirana (who actually signed interdiction letters for top management last December) too is expected to face the IGG detectives this week to basically answer why she didn’t act even when aggrieved whistle blowers petitioned her several times. She is also faulted for merely looking on (as the overall supervisor) as the interdicted members of top management marginalized those they considered to be whistle blowers. (For comments, email us on mulengera2040@gmail.com).
