Nakalema woos students in corruption fight

Kampala. The head of the Anti-Corruption Unit at State House, Lt Col Edith Nakalema, has asked all students throughout the country to be vigilant ambassadors in the fight against the corruption.
“We cannot fight corruption without you the bright-minded young people, the young generation of tomorrow and the leaders of tomorrow. It is your chance to start hating corruption of all sorts. I appeal to you to be ambassadors of fighting corruption in your beautiful country,” Col Nakalema said.

According to State House statement dated February 15, Col Nakalema made the remarks in Arua Municipality recently while on a fact finding mission in West Nile, following reports of misappropriation of road funds by officials of Arua Municipality.
There were also complaints of mismanagement of funds at Arua Public Secondary School by the head teacher, Mr Adimo Mark Alaba. Col Nakalema addressed students at Arua Public Secondary School after an impromptu visit to the municipality offices where Mr Adimo was exonerated of all the accusations of embezzling more than Shs200m as well as mismanagement of the administration of the school.

Arrested
Mr Adimo denied any wrongdoing, attributing issues of non-accountability of the more than Shs90m to be substantiated by the school bursar, Ms Frances Dokotho, who was handed over to officials of Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) for further investigation after failing to give satisfactory explanation of the funds that accrued from the hire of the school bus to the UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency. Lt Col Nakalema told the staff and students of Arua Public School to shun corruption in their homes and communities and work hard for their country to make Uganda a better place to live in.
“We want you to have it in your minds that you have decided and are determined to say ‘we do not want corruption in our homes, corruption in our hearts’ and that you are going to work hard to make Uganda a better place,” she advised.

In the verification meeting with Arua Municipality officials, the State House team discovered that more than Shs400m that was meant for the construction of the Mango, Staff Lane and Afra roads’ network had been diverted for other activities in the municipality.
Tasked to explain, the chief financial officer of Arua Municipality, Mr Erejo Rajab Kamil, said he diverted the funds anticipating recovery of the money from other municipality revenue collections that never happened. Mr Kamil revealed that the diverted money had been used for emoluments of councillors and other miscellaneous expenses.

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