WHISTLE BLOWER UNEARTHES 6BN SCANDAL AT METEOROLOGY BODY

By Mulengera Reporters
Writing to the IGG Irene Mulyagonja, a whistle blower has reported corruption and misconduct at Uganda National Meteorological Authority (UNMA) involving government money to the tune of Shs6bn. The whistle blower claims that some members of top management at UNMA connived to transfer Shs6bn in order to prevent the same from being returned to the Consolidated Fund at the close of the previous Financial Year. That the cash had been provided by the GoU towards the purchase and installation of the Radar System that is used in doing UNMA work which basically is whether fore-casting for the country. The whistle blower claims that because of too much intrigue at the Luzira-based UNMA, the project couldn’t be implemented on time. Consequently the Shs6bn had to be returned to the Consolidated Fund as unspent money which wasn’t done. The whistle blower says instead the money was transfered to the project account of CAA (another government) and was transfered back to UNMA account when the new FY commenced. The whistle blower lists officials the IGG must interogate regarding this irregularity. They include UNMA ED Festus Luboyera, Procurement Officer Mark Arinaitwe, Project Manager Solomon Mangeni, Legal Officer Patrick Musinguzi and Finance Director Alex Rutafa.

UNMA ED EXPLAINS
In a lenghty phone interview, UNMA ED Festus Luboyera admitted transfering money to the project account of another Authority to prevent it from being returned to the Consolidated Fund but says this was preceded by widespread consultation to secure the neccessary authorization. Whereas the general practice and rule is that all unspent money must be returned, an exception can be created. And Luboyera says this exactly is what happened. He says as accounting officer he consulted Accountant General Lawrence Semakula who assured him that once returned to the Consolidated Fund, there would be no guarantees that UNMA would get that money again yet the procurement of the radar was very important because its what UNMA bases on to generate whether change-related information that is very important for safety of the airports and the aviation industry in general. He said previously they had learnt the hard way when money meant to procure three radars was returned to the Consolidated Fund and the procurement was never done, something that greatly hurt their operations. Luboyera also explained the delay in procuring the Radar was because of complex procurement procedures and had nothing to do with the work place intrigue the whistle blower refers to in her petition. He said its these complicated procurement procedures, involving many players, that made the Solicitor General to understand his predicament as ED and gave his no objection to the MoU UNMA signed with the Entebbe-based CAA to whose project account the cash was transfered. “Everything was done in the open and the MoU was even drafted by the officers of the Solicitor General’s office and we have since got back the money and the procurement is going on well. No money was lost and no illegality was committed in good faith in the service of the people of Uganda,” Luboyera said. “The same by the way was reported to the State House anti-corruption unit of Col Edith Nakalema. We wrote to them explaining everything and they understood and permitted us to carry on with our work.” He suspects employees against whom disciplinary proceedings were recently undertaken to be the ones behind the latest reports to the IGG. We seperately established that the absence of a governing board is another factor slowing down work at UNMA. Its coming to a year without the BoD and management has to refer to the Minister of Water & Environment Sam Cheptorus from time to time. It’s also true that the uncertainty arising from the cabinet decision to rationalize Agencies to promote efficiency in government has too crippled work in many MDAs a good number of which are operating without governing boards. UNMA is among the many agencies that were recommended for scrapping so that it becomes a department in the mother Ministry of Water & Environment. Luboyera says many of those they consulted were lawyers who know the law very well and there is no way any iregularity could have been committed. For comments, call, text or whatsapp us on 0703164755.