District inspector, school head arrested over ghost teachers
What you need to know:
- In 2012, the district conducted a clean-up exercise of its payroll in which a total of 487 ghost teachers appeared on registers of six secondary schools and 42 primary schools in the district were deleted.
SEMBABULE. Police in Sembabule District are holding the Sembabule District inspector of schools and Kawanda Secondary School head teacher for allegedly maintaining 17 ghost teachers on the payroll.
Sources at Sembabule Police Station, who preferred anonymity, told Daily Monitor at the weekend that the suspects were picked from their offices last Thursday afternoon and detained at the station.
“The truth is, they have been arrested, but do not ask me any details,” a source said yesterday.
The suspects were arrested on the orders of Mr Henry Baguma, the Sembabule Resident District Commissioner (RDC), after police investigations revealed some district officials were conniving with school heads to maintain earlier deleted names of ghost teachers on the payroll for their selfish interests.
A fortnight ago, Mr Baguma visited Kawanda Secondary School and established that the school had seven ghost teachers.
Ghost teachers
According to Mr Baguma, a total of 17 teachers were said to be on the school’s payroll, but only 10 teach at the school.
The seven teachers were not even known by the students, according to the RDC.
He then ordered Mr Denis Musinguzi, the District Police Commander, to immediately kick off investigations and find out who puts ghost teachers on the payroll.
During an earlier interview with Daily Monitor, the school head teacher, Mr Patrick Muhwezi said it’s true his school had ghost teachers, but he never knew about it.
“I was shocked when Mr Baguma (RDC) brought the payroll list showing that my school had 17 teachers. I knew only 10 teachers, despite having a staff ceiling of 21” the head teacher told Daily Monitor last week.
He, however, put the blame on district officials, saying they have never shared a list showing the number of teachers posted to each school in the district.
“So we really do not know who put these teachers on payroll,” he added.
