Fraud: Police interview BoU staff

Fraud. Police officers spent most of yesterday at the central bank interviewing official, and more officials, including those from the Ministrty of Health, are yet to be questioned.

Detectives from the Criminal Investigations and Intelligence Directorate (CIID) yesterday spent the day at the Central Bank, interviewing a number of staff over the intercepted Shs1.2 billion that was in the process of being credited to a dubious National Medical Store (NMS) account in ABC Bank.
Police is in the process of identifying individuals who played a role in the fraudulent transfer that was noticed by Bank of Uganda and halted in its final process.

The Director CIID, Ms Grace Akullo, could not comment on the matter saying police had begun investigations which were still on-going. Detectives have so far interviewed the general manager NMS, Mr Moses Kamabare, as well as received written explanation from three government departments on their role and action taken to block a questionable transfer.

A source privy to the investigations told the Daily Monitor that detectives are set to interview the Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Health, Dr Asuman Lukwago, this week. The NMS boss insists that the questionable invoice sent to the ministry in November 2012 indicating an account number from ABC Bank, was a forgery from the ministry since their bankers are well known and are never indicated in the invoice.

The invoice which is subject to investigation has the same reference number, amount and content but different dates to the earlier invoice sent to the ministry in March 2011 by NMS, which raises suspicion that it may have been forged.

Mr Kamabare said there were an earlier demand to the Health ministry of $558,415 but the ministry paid $96,000 in April 2011 and the balance remained on grounds that they had no money to complete the payment.

The transfer was allegedly part of the payment for drugs delivered by NMS for Malaria Control Programme
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