By Edward Anyoli

Soroti Municipality Member of Parliament and former state minister for health Mike Mukula has been convicted and sentenced four years in jail for embezzling sh210m from Global Alliance Vaccination for Immunisation (GAVI). Sh1.6b was lost in the GAVI scam.

Mukula looked clearly subdued and bewildered after the Anti- Corruption Court Chief Magistrate Irene Akankwasa gave the damning verdict.

Mukula's wife cries in his arms after the sentence

Akankwasa said prosecution proved beyond reasonable doubt that Mukula signed for the money, received it and only returned it in three installments.

The Magistrate noted that Mukuala deprived the Government of the funds when he took it for personal gains though the records wrongly indicated that he had refunded it.

“The accused refunded the money on May 17, 2005; this proved that he took the money that was part of the sh263m he received,” Akankwasa said. “He intentionally took the money; that tantamount to theft.”

Mukula chats with a police officer after his sentence as distraught relatives look on