OPM staff bounce Ethics minister with iron sheets

Officials of the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) yesterday bounced aides sent by Uganda’s Ethics and Integrity tsar to return iron sheets she obtained irregularly.   

Ms Rose Lilly Akello is the minister for Ethics and Integrity and the principal roles of the directorate that she superintends under the Office of the President, according to information on its website, include coordinating government-wide fight against graft and inculcating a culture of honesty and moral values among citizens.

She, however, has been cast in the spotlight after it emerged that she received up to 800 pieces out of iron sheets that the government procured with emergency funding for reformed youthful warriors and poor Karimojong.

President Museveni, the ministers’ appointing authority, has since ordered political executives who took the roofing materials to return them or pay equivalent cash value if they already donated them.

Recipients who applied the sheets to personal use, he noted in an April 13 letter, should be prosecuted while promising unspecified “political action” when police, currently investigating the scandal, finish their work.

Mr Museveni noted that the act of his ministers and other political notables sharing the iron sheets bought for vulnerable Karimojong amounted to “political corruption” for cheap popularity, if they doled the items out to constituents and also “subversion” since the sheets were to reward youth giving up armed violence and cattle rustling in Uganda’s impoverished northeast.  

The presidential directive has ignited a rush by the political elite to return the iron sheets to OPM stores in Namanve Industrial Park, outside of Kampala to the east, where new rules in place mean collection of the sheets is subject to evidence documentation procedure.

Emissaries reportedly dispatched by minister Akello to hand in 300 out of the 800 iron sheets she had taken failed the rigorous exhibit test after stores staff demanded that an authorised representative be made available to record a statement accompanying the items’ return. There was none.

In addition, there were no police detectives and Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) staff on site to confirm that the quality and number of returned iron sheets matched those the beneficiaries took from OPM.

Aides to State Relief, Disaster Preparedness and Refugees minister, Ms Esther Anyakun, also ran into a similar headwind, and failed to hand to stores the 300 iron sheets that they said they were returning on the minister’s behalf.

We were unable to speak to both ministers by telephone and it was unclear if they attended yesterday’s meeting with President Museveni at Kololo Ceremonial Grounds in Kampala convened to canvass a common party position on the fate of the Anti-Homosexuality Act.

The 11th Parliament in which the ruling National Resistance Movement(NRM) has unassailable majority, on March 22 enacted the Bill, but President Museveni has withheld his signature on it, pending reconsideration by the House of provisions relating to punishment of homosexuals who promote the practice.  

OPM staff

Back at Namanve Industrial Area, OPM stores staff bounced the representatives of ministers Akello and Anyakun who camped there yesterday from morning.

“Their representatives [authorised to record a statement] were not around. The representatives are supposed to record a statement with the Police before the process of scrutinising the iron sheets and taking them back to the store can start,” a source close to the investigations told this newspaper.

When asked why the iron sheets brought by the two minsters had not been offloaded, Mr David Kayongo, the senior assistant secretary for finance and administration at the OPM, said “I don’t know those ones”.

He, however, added that they would be cleared as soon as they avail their representatives.  
However, the stores team received consignments from Chief Whip Hamson Obua, Lands Minister Judith Nabakooba and her Finance counterpart Matia Kasaija.

Mr Kasaija yesterday brought back an additional Shs302 pieces, adding total number of iron sheets he has returned to the 600 --- the quantity that he previously acknowledged to have received but unsolicited. His team had early in the week handed in 298 pieces.

Representatives of minister Nabakooba and Government Chief Whip Obua, whose portfolio is a Cabinet-equivalent, brought back 300 iron sheets on behalf of each political executive.

They had on Wednesday been bounced after OPM’s Kayongo left abruptly, citing urgent official commitment elsewhere.  Among the notables who have returned the iron sheets meant for Karamoja is Speaker of Parliament Anita Among, who bought 500 replacement pieces. 

Beneficiaries
Other notables named as beneficiaries, but are yet to return the iron sheets include Vice President Jessica Alupo and Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja. First Deputy Prime Minister Rebecca Kadaga, who acknowledged receiving iron sheets that she said she had donated to roof health facilities, has offered to pay cash equivalent to the value of the government property. 

The rush by top government officials follows President Museveni’s directive in an April 3 letter to beneficiaries to return the iron sheets in their possession, pay cash equivalent to values if already donated or face prosecution besides pending “political action”.

He accused recipients of political corruption and subversion.  The government last year bought the roofing materials with emergency funding for free distribution to poor Karimojong and reformed youthful warriors locally known as Karachunas, but top government officials in Kampala instead appropriated the iron sheets among themselves.

So far three ministers  - Goretti Kitutu (Karamoja Affairs), her junior Agness Nandutu and Amos Lugolobi (Finance) - have been charged in court with either conspiracy to commit a felony, causing loss of public property and dealing in suspect property. 

High Court victim
Whereas Ms Kitutu and Mr Lugoloobi, arraigned in court on different days are both out on bail, Ms Nandutu was committed to face trial at the High Court of the Anti-Corruption Division and on Wednesday remanded to Luzira Prisons until May 3.

More ministers are expected to be arrested and indicted over a saga with political and criminal ramifications.