Several soldiers of Uganda’s Special Forces Group (SFG),
the elite presidential guard unit, have been sentenced to 20 years
prison after a court martial found them guilty in the theft of Shs654
million ($258,809), from the State House cash office at Okello House in
Kampala.
State House Comptroller Lucy Mbonye Nakyobe told
the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament (PAC) on Tuesday that the
soldiers were arrested, tried in the military court and sentenced to 20
years in jail.
She said out of Shs654 million stolen from cash
office, only Shs63.8 million has since been recovered. However, the
committee heard that more than Shs590 million is unaccounted for.
“This case was reported to police in September
2011 and the soldiers were arrested, tried in court martial and they are
already in prison,” Ms Nakyobe said.
However, sources close to State House told Uganda's Daily Monitor newspaper
yesterday that the SFG took the lead in the investigations and that the
findings of the case were not disclosed to the public in order to bury
what they called the “embarrassment” of the thieving soldiers.
However, Ms Nakyobe dismissed this narrative and
said: “Soldiers broke into the strong room at Okello House and took away
the money. When they stole the money it took some time to catch them
and they had utilised some of the money. It was on a Saturday morning of
September 17, 2011 when we discovered this unfortunate incident.”
She added: “We found some cash thrown down and we
immediately reported to police. We don’t normally keep large sums of
money, but this time, we had brought in cash for travel abroad, but the
trip was later cancelled.”
MPs demand evidence
PAC chairperson Kassiano Wadri asked State House
officials to provide a copy of the judgment and the details on when the
Court Martial sentenced the thieving soldiers. Other lawmakers faulted
Ms Nakyobe for failure to recover the missing funds from the thieving
soldiers and demanded to know the measures put in place to avoid a
repeat of the incident.
The lawmakers demanded that CCTV cameras be installed at Okello House to protect public funds.
When the committee's lead counsel, Mr Eddie
Kwizera, asked: “Who arrested them [the thieving soldiers]?” Mr Nakyobe
replied: “I don’t know who arrested them; I think police and SFG worked
together to have them arrested.”
Whereas the unit spokesman at the time, Capt Edson Kwesiga, had told the Daily Monitor
in September when the theft was discovered that none of SFG soldiers
were involved, the Auditor-General in his 2012 report to Parliament
maintained that the people involved were serving military officers.
The committee heard from the Auditor-General’s
findings that although during the year, Shs590.2 million was reported
stolen from the cash office, no police report was availed to confirm the
said amount, and information about the theft was scanty.
However, Ms Nakyobe explained that the
Accountant-General was informed of this loss and the issue was handled
according to military procedures since the people involved were serving
officers. The committee and the Auditor-General advised the Accounting
Officer to minimise the holding of large sums of cash by seeking
permission to operate a credit card system.
Information before PAC shows that in September
2011, one Gideon Tumuhimbise and nine other suspects were arrested from
Rukungiri in western Uganda, by a joint security team comprising the
Police and the SFG operatives. To cover the trail, the suspects had
deposited the stolen cash in various commercial banks.
SOURCE: AFRICA REVIEW
SOURCE: AFRICA REVIEW
