Court officials steal divorce case cash

KAMPALA- Judicial officers at the Makindye-based Family Court have secretly removed and shared $26,000 (Shs93.6m) a couple seeking divorce deposited for “safe custody” pending disposal of their case, this newspaper can reveal.
Our investigations show that Ms Racheal Kisakye Nalukwago and then estranged husband Ryan Norbert Kaminski, an American citizen, on court order deposited 259 one hundred US dollar bills, two ten-dollar bills and four one-dollar bills.
Mr Paul Mwemeke, the accounts assistant, received the cash on February 12, 2016 and receipted it.

Court granted the divorce on grounds of “irreconcilable differences” and Principal Judge Yorokamu Bamwine mediated the consent settlement reached on March 2, 2017.
The divorcees subsequently divided their properties, including a school and land, and agreed to share the money they had deposited in court in equal amounts.

Ms Nalukwago and Mr Kaminski in the company of their lawyers were, however, stunned when they approached the Family Court registry and could not be given their money on three separate days after officials promised to do so.
This forced the intervention of the head of the court, Justice Percy Tuhaise, triggering a chain of investigations, an arrest, confessions and pleas for forgiveness by individuals who doled out the cash to themselves.

This was after assistant registrar Justine Atukwase, who had issued the order to deposit the money in court for “safe custody”, reported the disappearance of the money to Katwe Police Station in Kampala.
Police detained Mr Mwemeke for four days after he admitted to detectives and his supervisors the misuse of the cash, and the Judiciary later interdicted him.

The institution’s permanent secretary (PS) Kagole Kivumbi in a March 28, 2017 letter informed Mr Mwemeke that his action portrayed him as a “corrupt officer contrary to the code of conduct and ethics prescribed for all public officers in Uganda public service”.
“Your actions and behaviour has inconvenienced the parties (divorcees) in the above mentioned court case and tainted the good image of the Judiciary,” Mr Kivumbi noted.
In a contrite response, Mr Mwemeke informed his PS that he used the funds to “make some payments and accomplish [some] accountability”.

Financial transaction records this newspaper has seen indicate that half a dozen court and non-court officials connived to use the couple’s cash at will for personal benefit, including payment of salary advances as well as buying gifts and refreshments at a farewell party.
The money was also spent on airtime, fuel and lunch or doled out as soft loan between October and December 2016.

It has emerged that officials picked casually dollar bills from the court till and exchanged them into Ugandan shillings at City Centre Forex Bureaux whenever they had pressing financial demands.
For instance on October 3, a recipient in a handwritten note acknowledged receiving Shs2m from the cashier (Mr Mwemeke), “refundable shortly”.
The same person returned in the first week of December to snap up Shs3m out of the couple’s money, with a promise to reimburse by December 9.

Up to Shs10m characterised as “refundable advance” was allegedly paid out to one individual between September 19 to and identified in documents as an office supervisor, signed for Shs500,000 on December 2, 2016, promising to refund within a fortnight, three months after picking Shs600,000 “for purchase of a gift and refreshment for the mediator farewell party”. The beneficiary mediator’s identity was not revealed.
The unexpected disappearance of the money has united the divorcees to once again work together to recover it, and their lawyers in separate angry petitions to the Chief Justice and the Principal Judge have expressed frustration that the Judiciary has done little, if anything, to recover their clients’ cash.

“We also request Your Lordship for your intervention and cause our clients’ money to be paid back since it was properly deposited in court for safe custody and it is presumed it is still under safe custody,” lawyers Dickens Kagarura and Annette Kobusingye wrote in a March 17, 2017 joint petition to Chief Justice Bart Katureebe.
Still, the matter remained unresolved. Mr Mwemeke failed to refund the money by the March 27 deadline he set.

This prompted the parties to take the matter up with Chief Registrar Paul Gadenya and they this time attached vouchers and handwritten cash receipt acknowledgement chits, one of which showed part of the money was on the orders of a superior used for work of the investigations into abuse of office in Uganda National Roads Authority.
The Principal Judge on Wednesday referred our inquiries to the Chief Registrar and Judiciary spokesman Vincent Mugabo, who said the Chief Registrar’s office through the Inspector of Courts is investigating the matter.
“What I have gathered is that the cashier was interdicted and the matter is also being handled by police. We are waiting for the reports for the top management to take decision,” he said by telephone.

This newspaper understands that as the pressure to pay back the money piled, Mr Mwemeke convened a crisis family meeting on March 14, 2017 during which his wife, their children and a brother allegedly agreed that he sells a house and land on plot 1194, Block 106, in Kigungu, Mukono District, to raise resources to refund the couple’s money. No buyer, according to the cashier’s account to his supervisors, has made an enticing offer.
Ms Kisakye, a resident of Namayumba Trading Centre in Wakiso District, yesterday said that she was heartbroken that money deposited for “safe custody” could vanish without trace in court which she had considered to be a trusted institution.

“I am disappointed by the High Court because the person who ordered me to deposit the money for safe custody has since written to indicate the money has since been used for other things. And I have petitioned all the responsible authorities, but no response,” she said, adding:
“I need that money and also to see action taken against the officers who are supposed to serve but instead inflict pain on us, the clients. I have been ignored on several occasions whenever I try to pursue my money.”
Mr Kaminski was reported to have returned to the US. Their joint lawyers said the casual misappropriation of their clients’ money was “illegal” and unheard-of.

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