Town engineer held over road queries

Masaka Municipality engineer Augustus Turibarungi is led into a police pick-up truck after his arrest on Wednesday. Photo by MARTINS E SSEKWEYAMA.

MASAKA- Masaka Municipal engineer has been arrested over alleged financial irregularities in the municipality’s works department.

Mr Augustus Turibarungi was on Wednesday arrested by Masaka District police commander, Mr John Mwawule, who said he was acting on the orders of the Resident District Commissioner (RDC), Mr Joy Walusimbi.

Mr Walusimbi said he ordered the arrest after Mr Turibarungi and the municipal town clerk failed to provide credible accountability for the money released to the municipality under the Road Fund programme.

Records from the Ministry of Finance indicate that Masaka Municipality was allocated Shs580m to cater for routine road maintenance in the second quarter of 2015/16 (April-June 2015).

The audit report raised a lot of accountability queries on utilisation of the money, which prompted the RDC’s interest in the matter.

Mr Walusimbi said the President’s Office instructed him to investigate the suspected abuse of the funds.

Mr Walusimbi told Sunday Monitor that he had on Tuesday met both officials about the issue but they lied to him that they would take him to inspect the road works the following morning to make a proper assessment of the progress.

Mr Walusimbi said he waited for them in vain, before he decided to raid their offices. He said he challenged the engineer to show him the works, and he failed.

However, Mr Turibarungi said some of the money had been used to fill potholes on the roads, while another portion was spent on procuring Bitumen and construction material, which are still lying in stores but the keys were not readily available to open the premises.

“I find such explanations by such a senior government official unconvincing,” Mr Walusimbi said.

“We are going to ask for an external audit that will lead us to a racket that swindle public funds in this area,” he added.

Mr Joseph Kimbowa, the municipal town clerk, said he was abruptly called for an urgent meeting with higher authorities in Kampala, which required him to cancel the scheduled roads inspection exercise with the RDC. He promised to set another appointment date for the meeting with the RDC.

“We have a clear documentation of all works in the municipality and there is no cause for alarm,” he said.
However, Mr Walusimbi dismissed the town clerk’s explanation as mere excuses and insisted he should also record a statement with police over the alleged irregularities.