The Uganda Land Commission (ULC) is on the spot after the Auditor General (AG) discovered that payments for domestic arrears and other outstanding payables were understated by sh37.2b in the last financial year.

According to the draft management letter on the audit of ULC for the financial year that ended June 30, the Auditor General, John Muwanga, noted a discrepancy in the actual figures spent compared to what the commission declared to have spent.

Muwanga noted that sh27.35b was spent on the final settlement for some land claimants and partial payments to others, while sh9.84b was for property expenses, excluding sh172.75m that was spent on verifying property rates.

According to the cash flow statement, management asserts that they cleared domestic arrears worth sh19.1b. Muwanga observed that these were funds released under the COVID-19 relief to clear the entity’s outstanding domestic arrears.

“However, a review of the payment file revealed that there were more domestic arrears paid off (sh37.2b) in the year than what management is presenting,” the AG noted in his report dated October 21.

This implies that ULC spent sh56.3b in total on domestic arrears and other payables.

The ULC management indicated to the AG that they do not budget for all the arrears under the arrears code.

Muwanga noted that management was still in the process of establishing a commitment records system to track all payments for compensations and other obligations.

However, the Auditor General observed that with the domestic arrears and outstanding payables understated by sh37.2b, there is a risk that duplicate compensation and settling of arrears will be made in the future.

Muwanga, therefore, advised the ULC to make reconciliations and adjustments to the presented domestic arrears paid and the closing balance of the payables, as well as to expeditiously set up and complete the commitment control and tracking systems.

Sources revealed that ULC was supposed to respond to the audit report in two weeks’ time from October 21, but they have been embroiled in a leadership struggle after lands minister Judith Nabakooba, suspended the entire commission on October 28.

Attempts to get a comment from the ULC secretary, Barbara Imaryo, who was the commission’s accounting officer at the time, were futile.

Red flag raised

In October, New Vision reported that the ULC chairperson, Beatrice Byenkya, had stopped the payment of another sh24.5b, citing fraud, but the finance ministry went ahead and released the money.

Byenkya raised the red flag after going through the list of vouchers for 186 beneficiaries that had been prepared for payment. She argued that names of persons on the list were not the correct ones that had been generated by ULC. However, the finance ministry went ahead and released the money.

In her letter dated September 30 to Bank of Uganda (BoU), Byenkya said; “It has come to my knowledge that the attached is a list of claimants to be paid by ULC. However, that is not the list that was prepared by the commission in its sitting of September 24. Therefore, as chairperson of ULC, I hereby direct that all payments be stopped due to suspected fraud.”

The letter to the director banking in BoU was also copied to the Accountant General in the finance ministry, Lawrence Semakula.

Finance explains

In response to Byenkya’s red flag, Semakula said he had followed up the matter, but added that this was the second time such a scenario was happening.

“In the first instance, we were made to reprocess the same payments twice without changes. However, as the accounting officer, due diligence must be undertaken before validating and forwarding invoices for payment,” Semakula stated in his letter of October 4.

However, he noted that by the time Byenkya’s letter was received, payment had already been processed and submitted to commercial banks (beneficiaries’ accounts) since the process is largely straight through processing and could not be stopped.

“The remaining option is to recall ‹ the payments from the commercial banks, but this has to be initiated by the accounting officer, who is the authorised signatory to the account at Bank of Uganda,” Semakula said, before he asked the ULC accounting officer to handle the matter.

Police investigation

Preliminary Police investigations showed that the ULC officials, who were arrested on October 5, had paid over sh26b to 100 ghost beneficiaries.

The officials, who were picked after Police stormed their offices, were also found with over 500 land titles, whose owners are said to have been paid without verification. Police is also investigating the authenticity of these titles.

The three ULC officials arrested include Noah Hasahia Wambijji, the head of internal audit; Chris Jaramogi Otim, an accountant and Dennis Musinguzi, a senior lands officer.

New Vision has learnt that before joining ULC, Wambijji worked as an auditor in the Uganda Police Force. Several other ULC officials were lined up for questioning in the probe.

The three were released on Police bond after recording statements. The CID spokesperson, Charles Mansio Twine, confirmed the arrest, but declined to divulge details.

The arrest followed information that Police intercepted documents showing that over 100 people had been compensated, yet they were not claimants for any land.

“Among these 100 ghost beneficiaries are some top government officials,” the source privy to the investigations said.

Investigators have discovered that most of the land for which the ghost beneficiaries were compensated, is hosting public offices, including Police stations, hospitals, as well as roads, among other public institutions.

Police investigators have since taken the titles as exhibits as they investigate the criteria that the officials followed to pay out the money against the titles.

“They would miraculously pay without reports and in most cases, they exaggerated figures,” the source revealed moments after the suspects recorded statements at the CID headquarters in Kibuli, Kampala.

Police have already summoned forensic experts to analyse the titles to establish their authenticity. A total of 25 boxes filled with documents were carried away as detectives combed the ULC offices.

According to detectives who spoke to this paper on condition of anonymity, the implicated officials allegedly entered double payments to the genuine beneficiaries in the system.

Imaryo issues memo

Imaryo, in an internal memo on November 22, directed her undersecretary, Daniel Mugulusi, who was a week ago appointed the commission’s accounting officer, to handover office by November 24 and move to his new station at the Ministry of Ethics and Integrity.

Finance ministry permanent secretary Dr Ramathan Ggoobi, on November 11 cancelled Imaryo’s appointment as the commission’s accounting officer and appointed Mugulusi.

However, on November 12, Hajji Yunus Kakande, the permanent secretary in the Office of the President, transferred Mugulusi to the ethics and integrity ministry.

Commission suspended

Following reports of alleged financial fraud at ULC, the lands minister (Nabakooba) suspended the ULC chairperson and all the commissioners for two months to pave way for an audit.

In a letter dated October 28, Nabakooba suspended Byenkya, the commission secretary (Imaryo) and commissioners, who include; Richard Muhoozi, Prof. Nyeko Pen-Mogi, Asuman Kyafu, Hajat Madina Nsereko and Rukika Bujara. They were all sworn in office on July 29, 2019, by the then Deputy Chief Justice, Alfonse Owiny-Dollo.

Nabakooba had directed Byenkya and the commissioners to hand over office to the state minister for lands, Dr Sam Mayanja, by November 12 to pave way for the establishment of a “functional system at the entity.” Nabakooba also asked the Auditor General to carry out a forensic audit of all key transactions by the commission and submit a report quickly. She also requested the Inspector General of Government, Beti Kamya, to carry out an investigation into alleged cases of abuse and misuse of ULC resources.

However, the Attorney General, Kiryowa Kiwanuka, has since declared Nabakooba’s decision to suspend the ULC chairperson and commissioners illegal.

On Tuesday, New Vision reported that Kiryowa advised Nabakooba to withdraw her directive and instead write to President Yoweri Museveni to take action as the appointing authority. In the meantime, Kiwanuka advised that the status quo remains. When contacted, however, Nabakooba stuck to her guns that the commission chairperson and commissioners had to stay away for two months.