Anti-corruption court starts activities

By Charles Etukuri

The Anti-corruption court started its work last week after close to six months' freeze on the trials of corruption cases pending the resolution of a petition on its Constitutionality with magistrates annexed to it.

According to the Inspectorate General of Government, at least 120 graft cases were frozen, with the DPP alone, due to the petition that paralyzed operations of the graft Court.

The Constitutional Court had last year stayed all criminal proceedings on corruption cases in the Court following a petition by Davis Tusingwire challenging its constitutionality.

However, on December 20, 2013 the Constitutional Court ruled that the Anti-Corruption Court was properly established and constitutionally authorized to hear cases related to corruption.

Among some of the mind boggling corruption cases whose hearing has been fixed for next month include the Public Service pension scandal, the trial of Ministry of Local Government staff over the Local Council bicycle saga, the trial of former Principal Accountant in the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) Godfrey Kazinda  who is already serving a sentence for forgery.

Another is that of former Board Chairman of the National Social Security Fund Onegi Obel on charges of causing financial loss and abuse of office.

Contrary to reports in section of the media,  former Permanent Secretary in the OPM, Pius Bigirimana is not among officials lined up to face trial for corruption. Reports recently indicated that Bigirimana had been added on the list of some former OPM officials facing charges of abuse of office and embezzlement.

“This was an exaggeration. The Police investigation did not find Bigirimana liable for any wrong doing apart from the fact that he blew the whistle on the stinking rot that was eating up the OPM and affecting other government bodies such as Ministry of Finance and Bank of Uganda,” said a detective handling the OPM file.

A fresh trial for Kazinda starts on February 5 and the state has lined up several witnesses who include Bigirimana who is largely credited with blowing up the lid off a litany of rot within the OPM and exposed a racket of top thieving government officials in senior positions.

Had it not been for Bigirimana’s effort, the plundering of public resources would have continued unabated.

true
Former Principal Accountant in the OPM, Godfrey Kazinda arrives at the Anti Corruption Court over  charges of corruption. FILE PHOTO/Kennedy Oryema

On January 10, 2011, Bigirimana wrote to Kazinda, expressing his dismay at why he had on several occasions failed to avail all heads of department’s details of quarterly financial releases, monthly expenditures and balances under their votes.

The memo also exposed Kazinda’s abhorrent work methods which are typical of government officials who have let down the public service sector. The Permanent Secretary observed: “It has been reported to me that you run the Accounts Division like your private entity, the senior officers in the division do not have specific schedules of duties and even in your absence none of them is fully authorized t transact official business on your behalf. Work gets bogged down waiting for you.”

The PS said “worst of all, it has been brought to my attention that you directly and indirectly create a false impression that your irregular behaviour and poor work habits have got my blessing. This kind of conduct cannot be tolerated in the Public Service.”

When Kazinda absconded from duty, Bigirimana asked police to hunt him down and also invited the Auditor General to do a forensic audit of OPM accounts - focusing on the manipulation of the integrated financial management system by Kazinda, use of security documents in effecting payments on the projects and use of personal accounts in undertaking project activities.

It was then that John Muwanga discovered that over shs50bn had been stolen from OPM by Kazinda and his accomplices. Bigirimana later wrote to the Auditor General, saying a comprehensive forensic investigation should be carried out in all ministries to “clean up the system and address the systemic loopholes that are being exploited to defraud government of colossal sums of money and unearth the IT related crimes which have been going on.

He warned: “We must stand up to this vice if we have to honestly fight corruption. Impunity must stop. If we don’t do so, history will judge us harshly.”

The then Finance Ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Chris Kassami, later wrote to the Auditor General “to agree with the Accounting Officer of the OPM that forensic audit should be extended to all the Integrated Financial Management Systems (IFM) in all ministries including Finance and Bank of Uganda.”

The Auditor General later discovered loopholes in the IFMs and advised on necessary remedies. Meanwhile, during the investigation of financial irregularities in OPM, Bank of Uganda hired a forensic consultant in South Africa to microscopically verify signatures of Bigirimana on 120 questionable financial documents.

Brigadier J F Hattiingh reported his findings to Governor Tumusiime Mutebile on December 3, 2012: “During the examination, I conducted a cursory comparison of 135 documents bearing the signature of Mr Pius Bigirimana contained in the files and found at least 40 other signatures that exhibits all characteristics of forgeries.

The forgeries occurring indicates that forgery of Mr Bigirimana’s signature was a frequent occurrence.” Police recovered documents with forged signatures of Bigirimana from Kazinda’s house in Bukoto, a Kampala suburb.