KCCA senior official in bribery saga sent on forced leave
A photo montage of KCCA executive director, Dorothy Kisaka and Inspector General of Government, Beti Kamya. PHOTOS | FILE
Kampala Capital City Authority’s (KCCA) executive director, Ms Dorothy Kisaka, has sent the Acting manager management accounting, Mr Ivan Kirya, on forced leave to pave way for further investigations into his alleged involvement in solicitation for a bribe from one of the bidders for the roads project.
Ms Kisaka’s letter to Mr Kirya dated October 12, 2022 a copy of which Monitor has seen is titled “Instruction to proceed on leave”.
“…. you are therefore required to hand over your office to your supervisor and immediately proceed on leave to make way for unhindered investigations into the alleged acts by you and others. You will in due course be informed of the investigation outcome,” reads the letter in part.
It adds: “Please take note that during this time you will be required to respond to any inquiry from your supervisor. Secondly, you will not travel overseas nor access any KCCA office premises and related infrastructure without prior approval of this office.”
Ms Kisaka warned Mr Kirya that failure to comply with the above directives would subject him to disciplinary action including dismissal from the institution.
Ms Kisaka further informed him that she was implementing a directive from the Inspectorate General of Government (IGG) Beti Kamya contained in her letter dated July 28, 2022.
Ms Kisaka, however, did not specify how long Mr Kirya’s leave would take.
The letter is also copied to the KCCA’s chairperson of the Rewards and Sanctions Committee, deputy executive director, director human resource, director legal affairs and director internal audit.
Mr Kirya acknowledged receipt of the letter but declined to speak about the matter.
IGG probe
The IGG had earlier informed Ms Kisaka on July 28, 2022 that Mr Kirya and another official Godfrey Katerega Galimaka the manager of revenue accounting, solicited for a bribe from one of bidders during the procurement process for Lot Four roads project bankrolled by the African Development Bank (AfDB).
The IGG said that by accepting to meet over lunch with agents of bidders for Lot Four contract on January 31, 2022, and promised a bribe well aware that the evaluation committee was still in the process of compiling the report, Mr Galimaka and his team tainted the evaluation process.
The Ombudsman also directed the KCCA contracts committee with the approval of the accounting officer to appoint a new evaluation committee for Lot Four and carry out a fresh procurement.
“…listening to the audio recording, it clearly demonstrates that corruption in this tender process was conceived at the beginning of the tender process,” the IGG’s letter to Ms Kisaka dated July 28, 2022 reads.
Mr Galimaka was the chairperson of the evaluation committee for the contentious Lot Four project.
However, though sources said that he too had been sent on forced leave, we were unable to independently verify this claim. Our attempts to get a comment from Ms Kisaka about Mr Galimaka’s fate were also futile.
Although the IGG had recommended that the entire process be cancelled, Ms Kisaka requested her to rescind her directive arguing that the cancellation will delay works yet they are already behind schedule.
On October 11, 2022, the IGG wrote to Ms Kisaka and accepted her request but on condition that the two officials are punished.
“…I hereby set aside my Order contained in my letter HQT/02/03/2022 of July 28 2022 to give way to the African Development Bank intervention on condition that KCCA officers and any other member of the evaluation committee that met one of the bidders at Nanjing Restaurant and discussed the subject matter be punished in accordance with the Zero Tolerance to Corruption Policy of Uganda,” the IGG wrote.
