Why Parliament Committee ordered arrest of Amudat finance officer

Kampala, Uganda | GODFREY SSALI | The Amudat District Chief Finance Officer John Bosco Luchugi, was last week arrested on the orders of the Local Government Accounts Committee of Parliament for allegedly mismanaging and illegally spending billions of monies meant for works in the district.

Luchugi, who appeared before the Committee sitting in Mbarara District headquarters, was accused of taking over the entire powers of all the portfolios of the district and illegally spending the money.

He was faulted for signing, paying and sanctioning of the said money.

“This officer has taken over everything in the district. He is the Engineer, Procurement Officer and the Chairperson, and everybody here can see how he takes over answering all the queries even when his team, headed by the Chief Administrative Officer, is seated here,” Reagan Okumu said at the meeting on September 21 2017.

Okumu highlighted that most the queries were criminal in nature and for that that matter, he ordered the finance officer to make a statement on the state of affairs about the management of funds in Amudat district.

“I am asking CIID to interact with him for further investigation so that the information they will get will help the committee to have a clear image about issues of Amudat, and also give recommendations,” Okumu said.

Daniel Muheirwe expressed dissatisfaction with Luchugi and asked the Amudat Chief Administrative Officer to crack the whip and take charge of her officers.

“Amudat gets more funds and grants compared to other districts but when we asked him, as the finance officer, how much he collects in local revenue, he arrogantly said, ‘zero’. This clearly showed us that the level of abuse of funds in Amudat was extreme,” he said.

Dulu Angel Mark informed the officials that the committee had many queries with local government officials from Amudat district including the fact that they even failed to attend over three committee sittings when they were summoned to Soroti last year.

“If we take real scrutiny of all these queries, Amudat would not pass the test and we would have referred the whole team to police,” Joseph Ssekabiito said.

Ssembatya Edward expressed gratitude over the decision taken by the committee to arrest Mr. Luchugi saying that serious sanction must be taken against corrupt civil servants and that it is the only way to help government fight corruption.

“We have been penalizing people for stealing Shs2 million but this finance officer has mismanaged millions and millions of funds. This must end, and this must end today,” he said.

The committee plans to conduct a special visit to Amudat to assess the impact of abuse of funds, fraud and mismanagement of the district monies by local government officers.

The Committee has completed its meetings with all district accounting officers and is going to finalise its work after meeting the Minister and Permanent Secretary of Local Government, National Medical Stores and President Museveni. The committee will then write a report, which will be tabled on the Floor of Parliament.