District officials cited in Kabarole fraud case

Kabarole district officials are on the spot over fraud after a former worker was paid over sh80m shillings in gratuity.

According to the available documents the estate of the former senior treasurer Godfrey Mutegeki was on 27th October 2016, paid 82,549,048 as gratuity yet he was supposed to be paid sh40m.

According to the widow Jane Mutegeki, she received a call from the district principal personnel officer to check that her account had been credited.

"I did check the account and indeed the money was there. I withdrew the money and used it to clear all the debts left behind by my late husband and cleared school fees for my children, but I was surprised after five months to receive a letter informing me that I was overpaid," Mrs Mutegeki  said.

She said that she was compelled to refund the money but since she was unable to, she instead engaged lawyers.

In a letter dated 29th March 2017 to the Chief Administrative Officer, the Mutegeki said that she suspects that there could have been foul play on the side of the district officials.

"The late development is shocking, confusing and suspicious with many unanswered questions to our side and with all the challenges it's very difficult to refund the said money," reads the letter in parts.
A letter dated 21st April 2017 by Byamukama, Kaboneke and Co. advocates, the lawyers of the widow fault the CAO for not correctly computing, verifying and processing the payments.

"The administrator and beneficiaries of the estate could not know how much the entitlement was, therefore when funds where received on the estate account, they utilized them in good faith to discharge the obligations of the estate in accordance with the law," reads the letter in part.

The lawyers further fault the district officials for taking long to communicate to the widow that an overpayment was made.

"According to the payment schedule, gratuity was affected on 25th October, 2016 and it took six months to communicate to the widow that an overpayment was made."

Kabarole RDC Steven Asiimwe said the district officials should be investigated.

"The CAO and the finance officer at the district should be investigated and the IGG should take this up because this is fraud. It took them two quarters of a financial year to realize that they had overpaid," said Asiimwe.

"We shall not accept that we have got the correspondences between the CAO and the widow and on the part of the widow she has no problem. I have also asked the office of the IGG to come in and investigate the matter and if the problem was with the district officials, they refund the money to the treasurer," said Asiimwe.

However CAO Dunstan Balaba said they are doing all they can to ensure that they recover the money from Mutegeki.

Richard Rwabuhinga the district chairman for Kabarole said proper investigations should be conducted in ensuring that the money is recovered.

"We are not going to tolerate such cases of fraud if there were mistakes in payments, the excess money should be refunded," said Rwabuhinga.