GF witness survives jail over perjury
Dec 14, 2005
A former assistant district commissioner narrowly escaped jail over perjury yesterday when he gave contradictory information to the tribunal investigating mismanagement of the Global Fund on HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.
By Anne Mugisa and John Odyek
A former assistant district commissioner narrowly escaped jail over perjury yesterday when he gave contradictory information to the tribunal investigating mismanagement of the Global Fund on HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.
Justice James Ogoola, who is chairing the tribunal, was so irked that he warned the proprietor of Mbarara community Hospital, Nathan Karema, to tell the truth.
“The commission has powers to charge you for perjury. You are on oath. If you tell a lie, it is a crime. It is called perjury. Counsel asked you whether you keep your Global Fund money with the hospital money and you said no no no no and now we see you had put the money on the hospital account,†Ogoola said.
Karema transformed his hospital’s community department into a community-based org-anisation on November 3, 2004, through which he applied for the Global Fund money. He registered the organisation as MATHIV.
The warning came after karema insisted that MATHIV was operating independent of the hospital, but on scrutiny, his documents revealed that activities of both entities could not be distinguished.
A former assistant district commissioner narrowly escaped jail over perjury yesterday when he gave contradictory information to the tribunal investigating mismanagement of the Global Fund on HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.
Justice James Ogoola, who is chairing the tribunal, was so irked that he warned the proprietor of Mbarara community Hospital, Nathan Karema, to tell the truth.
“The commission has powers to charge you for perjury. You are on oath. If you tell a lie, it is a crime. It is called perjury. Counsel asked you whether you keep your Global Fund money with the hospital money and you said no no no no and now we see you had put the money on the hospital account,†Ogoola said.
Karema transformed his hospital’s community department into a community-based org-anisation on November 3, 2004, through which he applied for the Global Fund money. He registered the organisation as MATHIV.
The warning came after karema insisted that MATHIV was operating independent of the hospital, but on scrutiny, his documents revealed that activities of both entities could not be distinguished.