This is strange but true. Police in Kyaka Kyegegwa district in Western Uganda is holding at least four senior officials working with international NGO Danish Refugee Council (DRC) after they were caught red handed trying to sell off food and other relief items meant for refugees mostly from Congo. Kyaka II Refugee Settlement is home to a total of 32,656 refugees (29,286 of whom are from nearby DR Congo). An average of 800 refugees are brought to this camp every day because of the heightened tensions in the Congo. To cater for them, the UNHCR and WFP January this year contracted Danish Refugee Council to prepare daily meals to feed these newly arriving refugees on a daily basis as their settlement and integration into the camp is being worked on. This is besides other highly paid responsibilities DRC executes under the UNHCR/WFP long running contracts examples being the supply of non-food items (NFIs) and a range of community services among the refugee community. The community support services include child protection which is basically ensuring children rights aren’t violated while staying in the camps. The same powerful international NGO, which UNHCR/WFP always favors on grounds that local NGOs are unworthy because they are full of thieving employees, is also retained on very expensive terms to provide water and sanitation services in a number of refugee settlements/camps throughout the country.
STEALING REFUGEE FOOD:
What happens is that the UNHCR procures the food which is delivered through WFP for distribution to the refugees in the settlement camps. But because there many settlements/refugee camps hosting close to 1.4m refugees currently in Uganda, WFP outsources the function of food distribution to international agencies/NGOs like DRC, Samaritan Purse and others. They are technically called implementing partners in the UN language and because they are very contemptuous of the local Ugandan NGOs and personnel, these UN agencies have always sabotaged GoU policies like BuBu (Buy Uganda Build Uganda) whenever it comes to giving out even the smallest contracts. For standing up to them insisting that local service providers should also be considered, many GoU technocrats and politicians in the OPM have always paid heavy price including being falsely accused of harassing UN staff.
“We have been getting reports since January when DRC started this operation to daily feed arriving refugees but it was hard to act because the information was hard to corroborate but this time round the whistle blowers acted very smartly,” a police source based in Kyaka told this news website via telephone link a short while ago. The latest trouble for the thieving DRC staffers began Monday evening when a disgruntled and malnourished newly arrived refugee from DR Congo stormed a security meeting police was holding in the Kyaka II camp. The refugee cried out loudly saying he was tired of being given inadequate food yet everyday they see truckloads of food ferried into the camp. The rooms were food and other relief items are kept on arrival are technically called Reception Centers and these are under the direct custody and control of the UNHCR/WFP/DRC site manager who in this case is Daniel, a stout-looking UN expatriate from Kenya.
Some security officers in the routine security meeting tried chasing away the rampaging refugee thinking this was a mad man straying into their meeting. “This is not a joke. Neither I’m I mad. I have even put my complaint in writing and can take you to the place where this stolen food is being hidden,” the French-speaking refugee man shouted as the security operatives demanded than he leaves them to discuss. However, some insisted he has a complaint that merits verifying. They then walked out of the meeting closely walking behind the complainant who took them to the room where the stolen refugee food was being hidden. “It’s meant for us refugees but every day they give us very little food because they want to maximize the remainder which they are selling at our own expense,” the man reportedly explained to the puzzled cops.
The investigating cops, led by area OC CIID Ester Namanya, then rang Daniel the DRC site manager to come and open this specific Reception Center room. His response was hostile and suspicious. “He told us I’m very far away and in any case that doesn’t constitute an emergency on my part. I will come when I’m done with my business this side,” a police source quoted the DRC area manager as saying. “We had no choice but to forcefully break into the room and guess what; there it was. We found sealed boxes of cooking oil and unopened sacks of posho and this was confirmation that something wrong was being planned. Relief food that is genuinely a remainder should be unsealed showing it just remained. This one was well kept perhaps waiting for the night to be driven away.” The whistle-blowing refugee insisted he knew another reception room/store where the other stolen refugee (undistributed) items were being dubiously kept.
“We opened it and found 240 bags of posho still sealed each weighing 50kgs. This may look small to a distant observer but it comes to a lot of money if someone is able to do it daily for a whole year and goes undetected,” said another cop adding that police is investigating actors in a township called Hapuyo where most of this stolen refugee food is resold from. Hapuyo is in Kyegegwa district but another group is being investigated in Sembabule where some of the stolen refugee food is always sold from by DRC officials. “We are also widely opening our eyes on another report a whistle-blowing refugee had given us last week whereby a vehicle ferried 50 cartons of oil and 90 bags of posho and drove in the direction of Hapuyo.
We had dismissed these are mere allegations but what we have discovered so far from interrogating those we have arrested so far shows we need to do much more comprehensive investigations,” said an influential police officer based in Kyaka. “It’s now beginning to emerge that DRC staffers have been conniving to steal even non-food items like bells of blankets, sleeping mats, the brick molders and medical items meant for refugees. The selling destination has in most cases been Sembabule. You can be sure more arrests are going to be made because these detainees are making confessions pinning their superiors,” the source added. Those Danish Refugee Council (DRC) employees arrested so far include Akim Muzirwa, Richard Mutabaazi, Elizabeth Mubembe and Faidah Christine Bulendi. What makes this a big scandal for the DRC-and by extension their employers the UNHCR and WFP-is the fact that each time the OPM staffers working in the various refugee settlements become interested and insist on disciplinary action being taken, they are blackmailed and reported to UNHCR headquarters in Kampala for “harassment of the UN staff.”
BEATRICE ANYWAR’S CASE:
This exactly is the point Kitgum Municipality MP Beatrice Anywar made last week at Parliament when she told reporters that many of the UNHCR employees and contractors in Lamwo/Kitgum were taking advantage of the wide spread poverty and general lack of opportunities to sexually exploit young girls in the community where they operate from. “In many cases, victims have complained to police and the local OPM staff but no action is taken because they get blackmailed and accused of harassing UN staff yet they have diplomatic immunity.” Anywar accuses some UNHCR officials of using their privileged positions to sodomize young girls and boys in the recently established Lamwo settlement that is home to 21,472 refugees mostly from Sudan. Even elsewhere in Uganda, police is facing the same challenge each time UNHCR staffers are reported: someone transgresses another and gets reported but remains immune and untouchable because of diplomatic immunity.
The DRC refugee food criminal case in Kyaka II is registered as SD 24/20/3/2018. Separately, the other four detained DRC employees are being investigated under CRB41/2018. According to refugee management line minister Hillary Onek, going by what he reported to cabinet three weeks ago, this isn’t the first time that a similar criminal incidence involving actors connected to UNHCR refugee operations. Onek reported that sometime last year in May, he instructed then IGP Gen Kale Kayihura to fly to Isingiro where he investigated and confirmed some employees of Samaritan Purse had been involved in misappropriation of relief food meant for refugees. Samaritan Purse is the other “highly credible” international NGO that UNHCR/WFP contracts while shunning local NGOs and service providers on grounds that they are “too unethical” to be contracted by UN Agencies. For comments, call/text/whatsapp us on 0703164755!
