Health ministry accountant arrested over sh1.2b fraud

 BY Simon Masaba

Police have arrested an accountant in connection to a fraudulent transfer of sh1.2b from the ministry of health account to a shoddy account in ABC Capital Bank purported to belong to the National Medical Stores (NMS).

 Police alleges that, Alex Gumisiriza an accountant attached to the Global Fund Programme allegedly forged paper work on how the funds were to be moved from one account to the other.

Gumisiriza has denied, alleging that a top official from the Ministry instructed him to set out a work plan of how the funds could be channeled without notice.

 "I was put under a lot of pressure by an official from the Ministry to speed up the paper work for the funds to be channeled," Gumisiriza told the Director Criminal Intelligence and Investigations Directorate (CIID) Grace Akullo on Monday in a meeting before being interrogated by detectives.

 The payments were purportedly for services rendered by the National Medical Stores (NMS), handling fees for medicines and pharmaceutical products under the Uganda Global Fund Programme.

The funds were to be moved from an account in Bank of Uganda to an account opened in ABC Capital Bank, as part of payment for drugs delivered by NMS to the Malaria Control Programme.