OPM scam: Just get back our money

The grand scandal. Fraud, outright theft of public funds and corruption have become permanent features in the Auditor General’s reports. Parliament should wake up and cleanse the system before it is too late.

Forget the thugs in the “Pirates of the Caribbean”; the Office of the Prime Minister and other public offices are fast turning into safe hunting grounds for tricksters. It all started with a special audit, which found substantial evidence, detailing how foreign aid from Ireland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark was fiddled in a sophisticated scam that resulted in the theft of at least Shs50 billion. This was money meant for the poor people of northern Uganda and Karamoja, who are facing traumatic conditions.

A few years ago, a gang of crooked government officials decided to swindle millions of dollars from the Global Fund meant to buy life-saving drugs for people living with HIV/Aids and Tuberculosis. Part of this money was supposed to combat malaria, which kills 320 people every day in Uganda.

Similarly, they also pocketed the foreign aid meant for immunisation of children against the six killer diseases. In the process, millions of children must have died but somehow, for these tricksters life goes on.

With that money, the new breed of tricksters may have built mansions and financed luxurious shopping trips for their families in eminent places.

To date, this money has not been recovered. But in some way the Ministry of Health was ordered by the Cabinet to use taxpayers’ money to refund the stolen Gavi cash. How about the infamous 2007 Chogm spectacle where over Shs500 billion was lost and not a soul was asked to refund a shilling? At the highlight of this lugubrious event in Kampala, the tricksters planted grass and flowers for the Commonwealth summit and later claimed they were eaten by goats and cattle.

Unsurprisingly, Parliament did nothing. Having said that, the Parliament’s investigation into the apparent theft at the Office of the Prime Minister kicked off on Tuesday with officials from the Treasury — the custodians of public funds but were part of the scam. Officials from the Bank of Uganda will be followed by their colleagues at the epicentre of the scam in the coming week.

But when you sit in the Public Accounts Committee, which is investigating the grand theft at the OPM and you hear the bizarre tales from people entrusted with safeguarding public funds, you realise how crafty we have become as a nation.

The investigation into theft of millions of dollars in foreign aid meant for the Peace, Recovery and Development Plan for northern Uganda and Karamoja started in earnest and continues to unearth scandal after scandal.

On Day 1, the PAC heard that a former Principal Internal Auditor in the OPM, Mr Shaban Wejula, who had discovered the scam involving a racket of light-fingered officials from Treasury, OPM and Bank of Uganda, was “politically” transferred back to the Ministry of Finance on concocted grounds that he was a fault-finder and an incompetent officer.

On Day 2, the deputy Secretary to the Treasury, Mr Keith Muhakanizi, told the PAC that Mr Pius Bigirimana, the man in the middle of the storm, had told him that Mr Wejula was asking bribes from him and that former Premier, Apolo Nsibambi, also called him on the same day, saying that some people were “disturbing” the Permanent Secretary. It’s rather sad that this man was removed because he had found faults at the OPM.

The Secretary to the Treasury, Mr Chris Kassami, told PAC that at the pinnacle of this drama and the pressure exerted on this man, he even wanted to quit the profession. The popular view is that if Mr Bigirimana had not asked Mr Wejula to leave, the scam at the OPM wouldn’t have taken place. It was also strange that Mr Muhakanizi hurried to conclude that this Principal Internal Auditor was incompetent without following the rules of natural justice — giving him the opportunity to be heard.

By all standards, the inferences in the Auditor General’s report on the OPM scam are disturbing. For instance, the auditors found evidence of fraudulent transfer of more than Shs20.1 billion meant for PRDP from the Budget support accounts to a secret account in Bank of Uganda: The Crisis Management Project where the tricksters illegally utilised funds without approved work plans and authority.

On diversion of funds, an additional Shs18.1 billion meant for PRDP activities was funneled to the National Policy Disaster Management without any authority. The most interesting part is that the donors were contacted and denied agreeing to fund this policy. This expenditure line was smuggled into the project for people to swindle public funds. Another Shs16.2 billion was fraudulently paid by a trickster at the OPM to staff, secret accounts, private companies, Centenary Bank and district accounts using a password that was fraudulently obtained from another trickster a the Treasury.

Payments amounting to Shs13.4 billion from OPM accounts had forged signatures of a PS who has cut an image for himself as a “whistle-blower”. The responsible officers both in BOU and OPM should be held accountable. Most importantly, whoever took this money must pay back.

More than meets the eye
That was not all, Mr Kassami said, what happened at the OPM was “unprecedented theft” and that as country we have a big problem because everybody is capable of stealing. Mr Kassami told the MPs that the level of connivance to steal public funds had hit the roof. That our system was never made to foresee the kind of fraud, where tricksters disguised as candid public servants can sit and plan how to beat the system.