Left to Right: Ms Geraldine Ssali, Michael Mawanda (Igara East MP), Lawyer Julius Kirya, Ignatius Wamakuyu (Elgon County MP), Registrar Leonard Kavundira and Paul Akamba (Busiki County) in the dock at the Anti-Corruption Court in Kampala on July 18, 2024. PHOTO | ABUBAKER LUBOWA
Police’s Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) led by AIGP Tom Magambo, reportedly acting on President Museveni’s directive, yesterday arrested Trade ministry Permanent Secretary Geraldine Busuulwa Ssali.
But the seeds of trouble for her had been planted at least 10 months earlier. Around that time, Parliament’s Trade Committee chaired by Mr Mwine Mpaka concluded inquiries into alleged mismanagement of compensation cash for several farmers’ cooperative societies for assets lost in past wars.
The findings were damning against dozens of high-profile individuals, among them, the accounting officer herself, Members of Parliament and intermediary lawyers.
Parliament Speaker Anita Among forwarded the House Committee report to police, which adopted a prosecution-led investigation to dig up incriminating evidence against adversely named individuals.
Among the first to be picked up and charged in court for harvesting in gardens where they did not sow were MPs Michael Mawanda (Igara East), Paul Akamba (Busiki County) and Ignatius Wamakuyu (Elgon County).
They remain remanded at Luzira Prisons, alongside two other legislators; Yusuf Mutembuli of Bunyole East and Lwengo District Woman MP Cissy Namujju, indicted for budget-related corruption.
MP Akamba had been arrested together with the latter duo but was re-arrested after being bailed out and taken back to court on charges related to the Cooperatives cash scandal.
Then things went quiet. Or, so, it seemed. Yet, detectives were gathering evidence and speaking to a range of people, either as witnesses or suspects.
Then they narrowed down on PS Ssali, hitherto presumed powerful after her removal as accounting officer was quickly overturned by President Museveni.
When she appeared yesterday morning at the CID headquarters in Kibuli, a Kampala outskirt, to answer police summons, she was after hours of questioning instead rushed to the Anti-Corruption Court to face charges of abuse of office, causing financial loss of more than Shs3.8b, and conspiracy to defraud.
However, she was presented to court shortly after a prosecution team led by Mr Edward Muhumuza had informed presiding Chief Magistrate Joan Aciro that the PS would appear to take plea today.
The chief magistrate concurred, despite Ms Ssali’s last-minute production in court amid tight security, referring her back to policy custody and she spent last night in the cells at Kira Division Police headquarters.
But what case did the House Trade Committee make against PS Ssali, on which police built, leading to her time in custody?
On August 25, last year, House Speaker Anita Among had directed for a thorough inquiry into the status, governance, resourcing and value for money for public funds allocated to the Cooperatives during the 2011/2012 and 2022/2023 financial years
After a two-month probe, Mpaka’s committee presented a 210-page in October 2023, detailing what the lawmakers said was syndicated abuse of the compensation money with the alleged involvement of PS and colleagues.
The probe found her culpable in alleged fraud related to nine of 28 cooperatives scrutinised.
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Despite the existence of the Inter-Ministerial Committee that had been constituted by the Cabinet to verify war loss claims, the PS, according to the Committee, unjustifiably created a parallel verification committee.
This separate outfit comprising six Trade ministry bureaucrats and a government valuer, verified claims by only five cooperative unions; East Acholi, Lango, Busoga Growers, Bwavu Mpologoma, and Bugisu Growers.
“Ms Geraldine Ssali did not have the preserve or mandate authorising her to constitute or reconstitute a verification committee over one earlier constituted by [the] Cabinet. Without a justifiable cause to create other parallel administrative cost structures, Ms Ssali openly overstepped her powers,” the MPs’ report read in part.
It added: “Since there was already in place an inter-ministerial committee, the parallel verification committee so constituted by the permanent secretary, was henceforth a duplication, illegitimate, ill-intentioned and its continuous operations an illegality.”
Up until her arrest, the PS has consistently denied any wrongdoing and cast herself as a victim of a politically-motivated witch hunt.
The reason, according to her, was stopping the tenancy deal inked before her arrival as accounting officer, under which the Trade ministry was to relocate from its headquarters where it paid nominal rent to Kingdom Kampala to spend Shs10b a year on rent.
Innocence is not what the parliamentary Committee found or saw in her. For the legislators reported that the ministry under Ms Ssali’s watch paid out to real and purported beneficiary cooperatives funds exceeding Finance ministry releases.
Finance told the committee that it released Shs119.9b for the compensation between 2016/17 and 2022/23 financial years, yet the actual payments grossed Shs147b, almost four-fold higher than the budgeted Shs37.3b.
“The Committee observed that a total of Shs48.77b worth of compensation paid between FY2019/2020 and FY2022/23 was either made in excess or completely outside the amounts allocated to specific Cooperative in the Ministry of Trade Industry and Cooperatives (MTIC) work plan,” the report adds.
Farmers’ societies paid under this category included Lambuli Central Pulpery Cooperative Society (Shs4.7b), Jinja Multipurpose Cooperative Society Ltd (Shs4.8b), Buyaka Cooperative Society-(Shs3.5b), Masaaba Cooperative Union (Shs5b), Bumwambu Cooperative Society Ltd (Shs6.1b), Masaka Cooperative Union (Shs7b) and Bwavumpologoma Growers Cooperative Union (Shs2.75b).
Of all, the issues Bwavumpologoma Growers Cooperative Union Limited was a source of contention, which prompted the Committee to summon the PS who did not shy away during the September 23, 2023 meeting.
The Cooperative, which claimed Shs101.5b compensation, was registered on December 31, 1953, and closed by the then Cooperatives Minister John Kakonge on August 6, 1963, before it merged with other unions to form the present-day Masaka Cooperative Union Ltd.
The Committee found that the Union, whose assets were taken over without following the procedures set for winding up the cooperatives, and neither were its members incorporated in the new union, claiming that it was re-registered.
MPs concluded that Ms Ssali used her powers as PS and accounting officer to influence the payment of Shs1.74b to this cooperative society.
Appearing before the Committee on September 23, 2023, she argued that the said union exists, because her grandfather formed it.
“Bwavumpologoma existed and it was founded by my grandfather, Dr Adolf Kiwanuka. There are very big documents, if you go to Bweya right now, this cooperative existed and you knew about it. On that basis, I knew they lost a lot of coffee machinery, and all their coffee was taken. I know everything because it is exactly where I come from,” she said.
The PS added: “When we wrote letters to the secretary general, they also already had records of it and they even had SACCOs. I also found records within the ministry of Bwavumpologoma and I actually have those records. So, all that it needed was for someone to register them like all the other cooperatives that had war loss, but they had not.”
The Committee members never accepted her defence, recommending that she be interdicted.
More trouble
The Committee also faulted Ms Ssali for approving the payment of Shs1.74b to Zombo District-based Okoro Coffee Growers Cooperative Union Ltd without verification. This cooperative had claimed losing Shs1.65b, which prompted the Committee to recommend an investigation on Ms Ssali.
Mpaka’s team recommended that PS “be held personally liable for causing financial loss” in relation to the excess or unqualified payments.
Her arrest yesterday, after a lull, was reassuring to the Trade Committee’s former chair that their labour was not in vain.
“As the Chairperson of the Committee which conducted this investigation, I welcome the new development which is aimed at fighting corruption and funds’ mismanagement,” Mpaka he said in an interview for this article.
He added: “As the Parliament, our role is to investigate and issue recommendations, the investigation agencies start from there and I trust the Directorate of Criminal Investigation [has done a] good work of scrutinising our findings.”
Cases
House case against PS Geraldine Ssali
- Instituted a parallel verification committee
- Approved Shs37.3b excess payment to cooperative societies
- Approved Shs1.7b pay to unverified Okoro Cooperatives Society
- Approved Shs4.5b excess pay to Busoga Growers Cooperative Union
- Approved Shs500m excess pay to Lango Cooperative Society
- Approved Shs500m pay to unverified South Bukedi Cooperative Union Ltd
- Influenced Shs1.74b to non-existent Bwavu Mpologoma
