UGANDA: MPs want Bigirimana to refund stolen cash

By MERCY NALUGO.

A draft report by MPs on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has found the Permanent Secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister, Mr Pius Bigirimana, and other senior ministry officials culpable in the loss of billions of shillings meant for post-conflict recovery in northern Uganda and Karamoja sub-region.

The MPs want Mr Bigirimana held personally liable. They recommend that he be investigated and prosecuted, and also be made to refund the money that was stolen under his watch. 

Mr Bigirimana has, however, consistently denied any wrongdoing and last week told the police that he was ready for interrogation.

He also expressed willingness to cooperate with police during investigations. The details are contained in a highly confidential draft report the PAC members concluded on Thursday following five days of haggling on the key recommendations in Entebbe. The report is due for presentation to the House as soon as it is scheduled on the order paper.

The PAC committee chairperson, Mr Kassiano Wadri, while addressing journalists at Parliament on Thursday declined to divulge details of the report. He, however, indicated that 99 per cent of the report was done.

“The report has taken us two weeks to compile and we are as good as done. We shall have the report formally handed over to the Speaker, Ms Rebecca Kadaga for inclusion on the order paper,” he said.

He revealed that they had interfaced with more than 100 witnesses whose testimonies they considered when writing the report. Outlining some of the challenges they met as a committee during investigations, Mr Wadri said it was not easy to corroborate evidence from the witnesses.

Mbabazi, Museveni innocent

The MPs who had initially taken a hard-line stance on the Prime Minister, Mr Amama Mbabazi and the First Lady Janet Museveni, acquitted the two of any wrong doing saying there was no incriminating evidence to pin them since most of the fraud was committed before they joined the ministry.

The First Lady, who is also the Minister for Karamoja, was named in the Auditor General’s special audit report on the scam in OPM as having travelled to Israel nine times in one month using PRDP funds.

It was also alleged that her office received Shs3.5 billion. But she dismissed the allegations, saying she had travelled only once. She also said she does not handle cash for her office.

Mr Mbabazi, while appearing before PAC was questioned how his office became an implementing agency for the project yet under the 1995 Constitution, its mandate is to coordinate government programmes. He was also asked why the scam went undetected for almost two years as the political head of the docket.

“We could not relate facts they gave us and the findings of the Auditor General because they were out of scope. Also most fraud occurred before they [Mr Mbabazi and Ms Janet Museveni] were ministers,” said the source, who is not authorised to speak on behalf of the committee.

A special audit by the Auditor General found substantial evidence, detailing how foreign aid from Ireland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark was fiddled in a sophisticated scam that resulted in the theft of at least Shs50 billion.

Mr Bigirimana invited the Auditor General to carry out a forensic audit, but the MPs said there was a failure to stop the swindle of public funds by the accounting officer.

The report

The draft report implicates the government officials on diverting money meant for PRDP to procure ministers’ vehicles. This, according to the MPs, was done in breach of the PPDA Act and Finance regulations hence causing financial loss.

Evidence submitted before PAC indicated that about Shs2 billion in PRDP money was spent on buying luxury cars for ministers in the Premier’s office. Beneficiaries of the new cars included Mr Mbabazi and five others.

Read More: http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/MPs-want-Bigirimana-to-refund-stolen-cash/-/688334/1856436/-/2crh4o/-/index.html