MPs during a plenary session recently. PHOTO/ FILE
Five clerk assistants and four more legislators, including the House Budget Committee chair, are in the eye of a simmering budget graft storm following a wider police investigation into misappropriation of Shs164 billion earmarked for the compensation of cooperatives.
The clerk assistants, who served on the budget for committee since 2011, yesterday held back-to-back meetings with the Clerk to Parliament, sifting through documents in preparation for police interrogation in connection with the abuse of supplementary budgets.
The five clerk assistants are Mr Denis Opoti, Ms Ruth Ekirapa Byoona, Mr Justus Karyaijah, Ms Judith Taaka, and another person only identified as Alice Nyamwenge, who is the current Budget Committee clerk.
Daily Monitor understands that the clerk assistants have been ordered to appear at the CID headquarters on Friday at 10am with all key documents showing the Budget Committee proceedings, supplementary Budget Committee reports compiled on their watch and evidence of attendance of the committee members.
The clerk assistants, who helped the committee process the supplementary budgets from Finance Ministry, will be asked to help police understand how inflated figures came about. The Mpaka report revealed that payments to suspicious cooperatives were inflated and provided specifics of the problem.
Inflated payments
The Trade Committee had observed that a total of Shs48.77 billion worth of compensation paid between FY2021/2022 and 2022/2023 was either made in excess or completely outside the amounts allocated to specific cooperative in the Ministry of Trade work plan.
Notable cooperatives that were paid under this category include Lambuli Central Pulpery Cooperative Society (Shs4.70b); Jinja Multipurpose Cooperative Society Ltd (Shs4.8b); Buyaka Cooperative Society (Shs3.5b); Masaaba Cooperative Union (Shs5b); Bumwambu Cooperative Society Ltd (Shs6.7b); Masaka Cooperative Union (Shs7b) and Bwavumpologoma Growers Cooperative Union Ltd (Shs2.75b).
This particular investigation was ordered by House Speaker Anita Among last year. She instructed the Mpaka committee to inquire into the status, governance, resourcing and value for money for public funds allocated to cooperatives during the period of Financial Year 2011 /2012-2022/2023.
Mpaka speaks out
Asked last evening whether the committee found evidence connecting clerk assistants to the cooperatives saga, Mr Mpaka said: “The committee clerks were not part of the terms of reference given to us during investigations, so I can’t explain the extent of their involvement… for us we focused on the trail between Finance, Trade ministry and the cooperatives and the evidence is in our detailed report to Parliament.”
More MPs on the Budget Committee have also been summoned through the Speaker of Parliament, and they include Patrick Isiagi Opolot (Kachumbala), who chairs the Budget Committee. The details of the other three members were not readily available.
However, sources close to CID indicated last evening that all the former Budget Committee chairpersons and their deputies might as well be summoned to explain their roles in the cash scandal. Ms Esiagi was not available yesterday to comment on the summons.
The latest summons now bring the total number of MPs accused of having a hand in the abuse of cooperatives cash to seven. Three MPs, including Micheal Mawanda (Igara East), Ignatius Wamakuyu Mudimi (Elgon) and Paul Akamba (Busiki) were arraigned before the Anti-Corruption Court in Kampala on June 21.
The three legislators and lawyer Justus Kirya, were accused of diverting Shs3.4 billion meant for war loss compensation by the government to Buyaka Growers Cooperative Society. The suspects have since been remanded to Luzira prison on charges of diversion of funds and conspiracy to defraud.
Mr Chris Obore, the director of Communications and Public Affairs at the Parliament, yesterday confirmed the summons and clarified that “these are witness summons” for five Parliament staff under the Department of Clerks to help police with specific aspects of investigations into the handling of supplementary budgets.
Clerk assistants provide impartial procedural and secretarial support services to the Members of Parliament during plenary proceedings and committees. They arrange meetings, follow-up on matters resolved in the committees, provide instant interpretation of the House rules of procedure, keep documents and compile committee reports.
More officials to be summoned
More officials from Finance and Trade Ministries are expected to be summoned to CID in the coming weeks as detectives seek to get to the bottom of a multi-billion scandal.
Last year, the House sectoral committee on Tourism, Trade, and Industry report compiled by the then chairperson Mwine Mpaka revealed gross details the House Speaker Anita Among said borders on “criminality.”
Background
Between 1964 and 1990, the government supported cooperative financing through the cooperative bank. After restructuring of the banking industry, several banks were closed, including the cooperative bank. The government undertook to compensate all depositors the full amount of their deposits, over and above the insured limit of $2,000.
The liberalisation of the economy according to the Trade committee report, led to closure of the cooperatives bank and due to losses arising from the 1979-2006 wars, some regional and national level tertiary cooperative unions collapsed. These included Uganda Cooperative Central Union, Uganda Cooperation Transport Union, the Cooperative Insurance of Uganda and the Cooperative Bank for Financial Services, Uganda Credit Cooperative Union for all Saccos.
In a letter dated August 25, 2023 addressed to the Committee of Tourism, Trade and Industries, Speaker Among stated that there were some queries regarding the budgetary allocations and disbursements to various Cooperatives during the period spanning FY2011/2012 up to 2022/2023.
Speaker’s letter further stated that these queries raised red-flags to whether indeed public funds were disbursed to beneficiary Cooperatives and utilized for their intended objectives. It is against this background that the Committee was instructed to investigate abuse of taxpayers money in what has now become the cooperatives scandal.
