Apac loses Shs400m in payroll scam
A man counts money. Overpaid wages in Apac District have resulted in a Shs400m loss. Photo | File
What you need to know:
- Our investigation discovered that beneficiaries of the salary bonanza are mostly junior staff who earn peanuts. The salary scandal has also sucked in some people who received Shs35m each. Others were even paid twice.
Overpaid wages in Apac District have resulted in a Shs400m loss, Daily Monitor can reveal.
The alleged irregularities in payment of 18 staff – most of whom are teachers and health workers – was in June 2021.
Our investigation discovered that beneficiaries of the salary bonanza are mostly junior staff who earn peanuts. The salary scandal has also sucked in some people who received Shs35m each. Others were even paid twice.
The embezzled funds were supposed to be returned to the Treasury at the end of the financial year ending June 30. This followed Apac District’s failure to utilise all the money because it lacks a substantial District Service Commission to support staff recruitment.
The culprits, who fraudulently accounted for the unused funds, reportedly distributed the money among their core trusted relatives and friends. The fraud syndicate took place on the government’s Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS) on the watch of former Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), Mr Michael Mwanje. It was detailed in a report from Internal Audit dated September 13, 2021.
“On review of the payroll for the last quarter of Financial Year 2020/2021, as our mandate, the salary payment register revealed that a number of employees received payments which are doubtful and need deeper explanations from the officers that are charged with the responsibility of salary payment and the beneficiaries,” Mr Moses Aduche, the caretaker of Principal Internal Auditor of Apac, said.
Mr Aduche added that beneficiaries of the fraud syndicate have either not responded or are claiming “it’s their accumulated salary arrears”.
In an October 4 letter addressed to the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Local Government, the new CAO, Mr Grandfield Oryono Omonda, acknowledged the presence of a problem. The CAO has consequently requested the ministry to send inspectors to Apac.
Mr Raphael Magyezi, the Minister of Local Government, had also planned to visit Apac over the matter on October 14. This meeting was, however, postponed as a Cabinet retreat kept Mr Magyezi engaged at the time.
The Resident District Commissioner, Mr Emma Ngabirano, has already filed a fraud case at Apac Central Police Station on behalf of the government. He told Daily Monitor that “Apac politicians whose relatives are affected in this scandal are planning to cause the transfer of the RDC’’.
Mr Asanti Odongo, the district chairperson, however, said they intend “to follow [the case] up to” a logical conclusion. The “thieves’ days”, he added, “are numbered.”
Mr Tom Superman Opwonya, the executive director of the Apac Anti-Corruption Coalition, said most of the beneficiaries of the salary bonanza are junior staff who earn less than Shs500,000.
“Such fraud syndicate always takes place in the area of purported salary arrears’ payment and also in the payment of gratuity,” he said, adding: “It has been there even in the former government…and irregularities happens as the financial year is ending, when they know that some money must be returned to the Treasury.”
The North Kyoga regional police spokesperson, Mr Jimmy Patrick Okema, said the case could be “bigger than the police in Apac’’.
Apac District is no stranger to such fraud syndicates. In 2015, overpayment of salaries to some staff of the district led to a loss of more than Shs54m. The alleged irregularities in the payment of seven staff was in April, May, September, and November 2014 and extended to January 2015.
