Enrollment officers petition Aronda over ID funds

By Abou Kisige

Enrollment officers in Katakwi district have petitioned the National Coordinator of the National Identity Card Project, Gen. Aronda Nyakairima to investigate the district registrar for allegedly soliciting funds from enrollment officers in exchange for jobs.

According to a petition dated September 22, 2014, the district Registrar Peter Toddu solicited for money from various people working under him.

“Very many enrolment officers, parish supervisors and sub county supervisors and others lost lots of money to him under,” the petition reads in parts.

Chief Petitioner Augustine Iyeset also faults Toddu for directly misusing his office by swindling money that was meant for facilitation of officers and transportation of the kits to the tune of sh300m.

The enrollment officers filed the petition during a week-long follow up of the Anti-Corruption Caravan which traversed a number of districts in the North Eastern and Eastern Uganda this year.

The caravan was organized by Actionaid Uganda with funding from the Demographic Governance Facility.

The campaign aimed at mobilizing citizens for collective action by helping the public to understand the dangers of corruption towards service delivery and welfare of the citizenry.

The petitioners say that at the beginning of this exercise, the ministry allocated money for the transportation of the kits up to a tune of Shs300, 000 per kit for a period of four months.

Katakwi had 80 enrollment officers with each allocated a kit. They were also entitled to Sh400,00 as salary per month for a period of four months.

The petitioners say, Toddu allegedly swindled the money with enrollment officers getting little or nothing of this money forcing them to dig deep into their pockets to fund their movements to work.

“The registrar then fraudulently used some parish and sub county supervisors to move around with vouchers to be filled in the names of accounting for transport refund yet in reality the money was either never remitted to the right persons or given less(as low as 25,000=) a month” Iyeset said.

He said those who refused were intimidated that they either sign the vouchers or lose the jobs.” The petition further reads.

Iyeset said that the district registrar illegally replaced some of the sacked enrolment officers with ghost names as a cover up for his illegal actions especially in Abela parish, Katakwi Sub-county.

Toddu could not be reached by phone as his number was off and out of office. However district Resident Commissioner Katakwi district, Filbert Ocailap told New Vision in his office that no one is above the law.

“As chairperson of the co-ordination team of the National ID project I used the powers to force him to step aside to pave way for smooth investigations to take. As we speak he is out of office as inquiries continue,” Ocailap said…

Timothy Kabaale, Programme Officer Participatory Democracy and Governance noted Uganda can achieve equitable, quality and sustained service delivery if technical and political leaders put aside selfish interests to build a society in which all citizens claim fair share of national opportunities and resources.

He called upon Ugandans to continue to speak out on all forms of corruption in their households, communities and public offices without fear and favour