State House arrests city pastor over mass fraud    

The State House Anti-Corruption Unit has arrested a pastor who is accused with two others of fleecing hundreds of people of millions of shillings with false promises to benefit from foreign trips and government programmes.

The pastor (names withheld) was arrested at Mutukula border with Tanzania while fleeing Uganda yesterday.   

The head of the State House Anti-Corruption Unit, Lt Col Edith Nakalema, said their detectives have been tracking the pastor and finally caught up with him before he crossed the border to Tanzania yesterday. She said his two co-accused are still on the run.

The suspect is jointly accused with another pastor and a lawyer (both names withheld) of defrauding the public by false promises for trips abroad and meeting President Museveni.       

Between 2017 and August 2020, directors of more than 400 private schools and 30,000 people, among them Pentecostal pastors and believers from various parts of the country, were mobilised and duped into paying monies to benefit from different government initiatives to improve livelihoods.

Detectives attached to the State House Anti-Corruption Unit said two pastors and a lawyer used President Museveni’s name, those of his wife Janet and brother Gen Salim Saleh to dupe the people into paying the monies and later threatened them when they demanded accountability.

Nakalema’s vow

Lt Col Nakalema said her team will work jointly with Police’s Criminal Investigations Directorate to expedite the investigations. 

“For me who is coordinating the fight against corruption, that one is a thief and we cannot bring in the father and grandmother. He [pastor’s name withheld] is a thief, whoever is associated with him is risking. Why I am judging like that before investigations is that there is proof of him taking people’s money without giving them anything,” she said.

Lt Col Nakalema wondered how people of influence such as pastors could deal with wrong people.

“You should have known the people you are dealing with. When you tell me that you represent a whole region, you should know who is a right person and a wrong one. You should have followed up where your money was going,” she told the victims who included pastors, NRM mobilisers, soldiers and other government officials.

Pastor Edward Masaba from eastern Uganda said the implicated pastor, who heads a Pentecostal church in Bombo, Luwero District, working with a lawyer and another pastor, mobilised them to form an organisation, Hands Across the World Initiative Uganda. It is through this organisation, he said, they paid the money and were fleeced.

It is alleged that in July 2017, the three suspects presented a programme called Israel Trip and sought 200 people to take to Israel. Thereafter, 40 people paid Shs500,000 each, 75 people paid Shs650,000 each, 20 people paid Shs910,000 each, 15 paid Shs950,000 each and another 15 paid Shs1m each. The trip did not materialise.

Pastor Masaba, who was elected the president of Hands Across the World Initiative Uganda, alleges that in January 2018, he was made to mobilise and register another 1,528 people for a trip to South Africa and each was made to pay Shs50,000 but it did not happen.

Asked about the purpose of the trips, Pastor Masaba said: “The purpose for Israel was that [accused pastor] got friends in Israel and they wanted him to take his Christians there because he told them he has more than 500 members yet he did not have them and he had to call and get more pastors across the country.”

Fraud claims

He added that the 200 people were going to Israel to train for that organisation where the 50 members were to be directors and the 150 would be coordinators.

For South Africa, Pastor Masaba said they mobilised more than 1,000 people to travel for a conference and each was asked to pay Shs50,000 but they were instead given certificates despite telling them that flights and other requirements had been catered for.

“We have special trips and a total of 150 people each paid Shs500,000 for those people who were going to work with the president (of the organisation) who was me. They said when we go out, we would need work permits and they wanted 50 people who were supposed to be ministers. And we were each supposed to pay Shs125,000, which was paid for work permits because they would be going out,” he claimed.

According to Pastor Masaba, in October 2017, they also mobilised and registered 279,606 needy people countrywide, including the orphans, elderly, widows, people living with HIV, PWDs, single mothers and new born babies who paid Shs25,000 each.

Other categories of payments made to the accused persons include schools and church renovation where 400 proprietors were each made to pay Shs130,000. Pastor Steven Naaya from Nangabo Church in Kasangati Town Council, Wakiso District, said in June 2019 at Kanyanya in Kawempe Division, he met [the implicated pastor] who told him he works in State House and introduced him to an NRM mobiliser identified as Kisanja and another person called Magoola.

“At the meeting, [implicated pastor] told me that the President had sent him to mobilise people to campaign for him through churches and he promised to bring so many high profile people to us to confirm that he works with the President,” he said.

Pastor Naaya said the suspect told him the President had asked him to mobilise 4,000 born again members to meet him at his country home in Rwakitura, Kiruhura District.

Instead of going to the President, Pastor Naaya said the pastor instead invited them to come and meet Ms Lucy Nakyobe, the State House Comptroller, at Bombo Revival Christian Ministries.

“We sat on December 31, 2019; all the pastors came but the President and Ms Nakyobe did not come. Instead we saw Catherine Kusasira who came at midnight with heavily armed guards. He told us that her presence is equal to meeting the President,” Pastor Naaya said.