Nakasongola district official arrested over payroll fraud

PIC: Nakasongola district personnel officer Charles Drichi after being arrested by parliamentary officer. (Credit: Frederick Kiwanuka)

CRIME | FRAUD

Nakasongola District personnel officer, Charles Drichi, suffered the wrath of the parliamentary committee on local government accounts when the committee members caused his arrest.

The committee, whose members were in Nakasongola on Wednesday, also ordered the district administration to interdict the official over alleged irregularities on the district local government payroll.

The team, who were led by Reagan Okumu, had gone to Nakasongola to scrutinize financial performance of six central Ugandan districts for the 2015/16 financial year.

The other districts whose performances were scrutinized and the relevant officers made to explain included: Mpigi, Butambala, Gomba, Nakaseke and Luweero.

Drichi's woes started when he deliberately refused to appear before the committee, whose members wanted him to explain several irregularities that were found of the Nakasongola district local government payroll.

Instead of appearing before the committee to explain, Drichi stayed home, something that angered the committee chairman Okumu, who ordered the parliamentary police to arrest the official .

Okumu also ordered Nakasongola district local government to interdict the official. 

The committee which sat at Nakasongola district headquarters had earlier on identified numerous irregulaties on the district payroll, prompting the members to quiz the chief administrative officer (CAO) who also referred some of the queries to the personnel officer.

But the latter refused to appear before the committee.

The committee also ordered the CAO, Freda Babirye, to recover sh34m whose expenditure was not properly accounted for, and to institute a mechanism to create harmony among district employees and politicians.

The committee members also noted that the bulk of the district local revenue was being swindled by civil servants and ordered the district administration to institute measures to guard against the swindling.

Meanwhile, Luweero district local government council was faulted for giving away Nyimbwa Forest Reserve to industrialists in violation of environment concerns.

The committee members noted that there was connivance between the district top officials and the top officials of the ministry of natural resources.

A former district natural resources officer, Hood Luyima had earlier told the committee that the giving away of the forest reserve was done on the orders of the president, an excuse the committee disputed.

Instead the committee members accused the official of using the president's name.