By Vision Reporter

State House has joined the investigations against civil servants suspected of defrauding the Government through payments to hotels for fictitious workshops.

Dr. Diana Atwine, the head of State House Medicines and Health Service Delivery Monitoring Unit, said there was collusion between seminar organisers in different government agencies and hotels which had led to loss of billions of taxpayers and donor funds.

Karim Hirji implicated

City businesman Karim Hirji was interrogated in connection with a sh76m ghost workshop allegedly organised on January 8 by the works ministry at the Imperial Royale Hotel in Kampala.

Works ministry officials interogated

Offi cials from the Ministry of Works, including the assistant commissioner for transport, Rosemary Tibiwa and a senior accountant, Gerald Ekimu, were also questioned.

Others are Rogers Kisamba, a civil engineer; Andrew Kwesiga, an economist and some of the hotel staff. Details emerging show that the works ministry only booked a half-day workshop worth sh6m, but processed payment for a two-day residential workshop which cost sh76m.

Investigations have revealed that although 20 people attended, the number was inflated to 48. Each participant reportedly bagged sh96,000 in daily allowances.

The money was promptly released by the ministry officials to the hotel. Sources said sh38m was on February 11 withdrawn from a bank on Jinja Road and paid back to the Ministry of Works official at Fuelex Petrol Station on Entebbe Road by a senior employee of Imperial Royale Hotel.

Police intervenes

Sources said the Police have retrieved the phone conversations between Hirji and the ministry officials on the transaction. Hirji was not available for comment. 

The Directorate of Public Prosecutions confirmed that the fi le on Hirji and the implicated works officials was received from the Police on Friday morning.

Atwine said she had discussed with the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets (PPDA) about a possibility of pruning and blacklisting the hotels involved, given the largescale fraud.

PPDA executive director Cornelia Sabiti said: “The PPDA law requires government entities to forward a recommendation of a company including the hotels to be suspended, listing grounds such as fraud and collusion.

We then undertake an investigation based on our findings and suspend the company.”

Health ministry in the racket

Atwine also revealed that she had earlier unearthed a racket where health ministry officials colluded with Imperial Royale Hotel staff to defraud the Government.

She said when the fraud was detected in November last year, Hirji pleaded with the investigators. He was allowed to refund sh7m, claiming there was an error in the payment.

Atwine said the case was still being pursued. “We have not concluded the case. This is a huge racket and these people know how to cover their tracks.

We are still getting information from the people who allegedly attended the health workshops,” Atwine said.

The Criminal Intelligence and Investigations Department Director, Grace Akullo, on Friday confirmed that her office had received the information about Ministry of Health officials who pocketed millions for ghost workshops.

She added that the works scandal had raised a red flag on workshops in different government agencies. Both Akullo and Atwine say the practice is widespread in all government departments.

Atwine said in one of the extreme cases, an implicated hotel burnt the forged documents and claimed they were destroyed by a fi re.

She also said government officials select venue for workshops outside the city to justify the payment of per diem. The preferred hotels are Imperial Royale, one other Kampala hotel and two others in Seeta and Jinja.

Atwine wondered why ministries do not use the free facilities at Statistics House for workshops.

Nature of malpractices

The malpractices include officials collecting allowances without attending workshops, obtaining money in excess of actual duration of the workshops, obtaining forged receipts as supporting documents and faking attendance lists in order to pocket excess allowances.

In other cases, people received allowances before attending the workshops, while there was also rampant inflation of the number of workshops and days.