School head arrested over ghost teacher

Wakiso District deputy Chief Administrative Officer Wasswa Masokoyi (left) with others district officials during a meeting with Bussi Island residents recently. PHOTO BY JOSEPH KIGGUNDU

What you need to know:

  • Busted. The ghost teacher had withdrawn at least Shs10m in two years.
  • Mr Masokoyi said Bussi Secondary School was also under investigations following reports that some teachers at the school had stopped teaching long time ago, but still draw salaries every month.

Wakiso. Police in Wakiso District are holding the head teacher of Bussi Modern Primary School and a teacher on allegations of drawing salary for two years without teaching at the school.
According to police preliminary investigations, the female suspect, who claims to be a teacher at the school, was missing on the district payroll after her name was deleted, but she connived with the head teacher and got back on the payroll.

“We have interrogated the woman and she has confessed that she has never taught at the school and doesn’t know where it is located,” Ms Harriet Kenyana, the officer in charge of criminal investigation and intelligence at Wakiso District Police Station, said in an interview on Thursday.

Ms Kenyana said both suspects will be charged with fraud and financial loss to government.
Mr Wasswa Masokoyi, the Wakiso District deputy chief administrative officer, said they detected the anomaly early this week when the suspect showed up at his office on Tuesday complaining that she had not been receiving salary for the last four months.

“When we checked our data base, we found out that the suspect was among the ghost teachers we had erased from our system in May. She could not defend her claim because she knew deep in her heart that the head teacher had unscrupulously resubmitted her name to the district and has been defrauding government for two years ,” he said
Mr Masokoyi said their data base indicates that the suspect had bagged close to Shs10m in two years.
He said since the district embarked on cleaning its pay roll register, a total of 200 ghost civil servants have been detected and removed from the payroll, majority of whom are teachers. The district employees 3,200 primary school teachers.

Mr Masokoyi said Bussi Secondary School was also under investigations following reports that some teachers at the school had stopped teaching long time ago, but still draw salaries every month.