How teacher lost Shs17m in salary arrears to fraudsters

A primary school teacher in Pader is depressed upon learning that district officials allegedly shared his accumulated salary arrears.
Mr Charles Okongo, who has served as a teacher for 12 years, lost Shs17 million in what appears to be a syndicated fraud.

Trouble started when Mr Okongo allegedly absconded from duty while teaching at Opatte Primary School in Atanga Sub-county in 2012. 
In February 2014, the district deleted his name from the payroll without interdiction.
However, the district later discovered that the teacher was involved in a criminal activity that caused his arrest. He was charged in courts of law but the case against him was dismissed in January 2020.

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As the law requires, he was to be paid his salary arrears for a period of 10 years, amounting to Shs69.6 million.
Aware of this, some individuals working in key offices in Pader allegedly connived and started processing the payment without involving the teacher.
When they got stuck along the way, they started engaging the teacher.
Eventually, the teacher received Shs15 million out of Shs32, 316, 764 wired through an account number that does not belong to him, the Pader District chairperson, Col (Rtd) Fearless Obwoya Oyat, said.
The account, 01403087298144, opened in dfcu Bank Pader branch, is in the names of Oyella Harriet Spola. The account holder happens to be a cleaner (office aide) attached to the office of the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO).

The money was paid to the account between the last week of June and first week of July 2022, the district chairperson said.
 “Towards the end of June 2022, I received a call from someone who said there was a team from Kampala working on my file and that they got a problem with my supplier number,” Mr Okongo said.
Before he was deleted from the payroll, the teacher had already shared the supplier number with the district.
“This time, they turned around and said the information written on the supplier number is that I was registered as a vendor, not as an employee.  When you are registered as a vendor, it appears as someone who is owning his business of which he is not entitled to receive the salary,” the teacher explained.  

“So, they instructed me that it’s time to give them a supplier number of any employee who is already on the payroll. So, when I started calling my head teacher, I could not get anyone with the supplier number. After some five minutes, they called me back and inquired whether I had already got the supplier number. I told them that I had failed,” Mr Okongo said.
Immediately, network of workers gave the teacher the supplier number of an unknown employee. He was also instructed to call that person to negotiate with him to allow him access payment through his account.
The person introduced himself as a teacher of Angagura Primary School, Angagura Sub-county in Pader District.
“As I tried to negotiate with the teacher, they called me and said I was already late. The team from Kampala wanted that information and they had already gone back and yet it did not take even 10 minutes,” Mr Okongo explained. 

They instructed the teacher to reach the district headquarters the following day by 8am in the morning. 
“When I went, I got the internal auditor (Kenneth Opwonya) and human resource (Lillian Atek) and Oyela together in the same office. They told me that a team came from Kampala and since they were in a hurry, they wanted to go back with my money and they decided to pay the money to Oyela’s account.”
The teacher was instructed to wait after four days when the money would have been ready for withdrawal. 
“After three days, Harriet called telling me that the money was now ready in her account to be withdrawn and asked me to come so that we could withdraw it. I travelled again from Gulu to Pader,” he said.

On arrival, they went to the bank but the teller did not give them a green light to withdraw the money unless she produced a letter of undertaking from the CAO. This time, Ms Oyela left the teacher at the bank and hurried back to the district headquarters to collect the letter. Shortly, she returned with two letters, one of undertaking and another, a clarification from CAO about the suspicious transaction.
The bank manager intervened and asked the teacher whether he owns an account with any bank, and when the teacher said Stanbic Bank, he was asked to go and get a bank statement. 
Mr Okongo processed the bank statement and returned to Pader. 
“The following morning, we went back to the bank with Harriet, and it was discovered that her account had an unpaid loan of Shs130,000 and she said the money should be deducted from my money, which is in her account,” the teacher said.

The Shs130,000 was deducted from the Shs32, 316,764. After withdrawing the money, she did not give the cash to Mr Okongo but instead told him to follow her to her home, about 150 metres away from the bank.
“We then entered her house. Within two minutes, a vehicle came, and surprisingly, I saw the internal auditor getting out. Harriet then welcomed him inside the house. Before he could sit down, the internal auditor said the CAO is seriously waiting for that money. He picked the money from Harriet and started counting,” the teacher narrated.
 “So, he gave me Shs15 million and went with the balance together with Harriet in the vehicle. I left Harriet’s place with the Shs15 million but before reaching where I was going to sleep, I received a call from human resource, inquiring whether we had already withdrawn the money.”

 The human resource became angry. “She started harassing me that the internal auditor shouldn’t have got the money because she was the one who was struggling to process it. She told me if it is like that, I should go and get only Shs2 million which the internal auditor gave her. When I went to her, she told me when she was processing my money, she was using some people from Kampala and those people were expecting Shs3 million from that money,” the teacher said.
 Mr Okongo said she pleaded with him to add her Shs1 million, to make altogether Shs3 million, which she would give to her Kampala partners.
 “After one week, I went back to the district and I informed somebody about what happened to me and the person forwarded the issue to the area Resident District Commissioner (RDC),” he said.

The RDC then shared the story with the district chairperson who in turn requested the teacher to make a written statement about the whole thing. 
  The district chairperson said he called a meeting with the RDC, the District Police Commander, the officer-in-charge of the Criminal Investigations Directorate, Deputy RDC, the acting District Internal Security Officer, Chief Administrative Officer and the district executive committee members and asked the OC CID to carry out investigations into  the matter.  “I was told that the RDC called OC CID and OC Station and briefed them not to carry out an investigation into the alleged reported fraud because the district chairperson wants to use security to help him fight his political opponent,” Col (Rtd) Obwoya said.
 “I became disappointed seeing that the RDC was not taking any action and yet he got confirmation from the teacher that the allegation was true,” he added.

 When contacted, Mr Milton Odongo, the RDC, was reluctant to comment on the issue.  “I will share with you my findings on WhatsApp when I go back to the office,” he said on Tuesday. However, he did not keep his word.
 Nonetheless, a document seen by this publication seems to suggest that he wanted the case followed up to its logical conclusion.
 “It is alleged that during the payment of his (Okongo’s) arrears, some people demanded money for processing his payment. The purpose of this letter is to request you to investigate the allegations and report to me your findings and actions,” Mr Odongo said in a letter to the district CID dated August 10.

 Ms Oyela, whose account was allegedly used to process Mr Okongo’s money, declined to comment. “I am not concerned with salary issues. You call the CAO,” she said via telephone on Tuesday.
 The CAO, Mr Alex Chelimo, said he was still attending a meeting.  
 Mr Opwonya, the district internal auditor, said his office “technically complimented” the work of management.
 “Those are fake allegations which shall be proven out,” he said, adding that he recorded a statement at Pader Central Police Station and was granted bond as investigations into the matter continue.
 The human resource officer, Ms Lillian Atek, did not pick our repeated calls to her known mobile number.