On 8th August 2019, the IGG found seven (7) parliamentary staff including a director guilty of corruption.
The Ombudsman implicated Emmanuel Bakwega, Director of Clerks and Paul Wabwire, Deputy Clerk Parliamentary Affairs for fraudulently receiving Shs100m as facilitation for a training in Kigali and UK between December 2015 and June 2016, but did not attend the trainings.
According to the IGG report, the two were advanced the money to attend a seminar, “Beyond aid: Innovative Governance, Financing and Partnership for post 2015 Agenda” at Wilton Park in June 2016, but they decided to pocket the money and did not attend the said workshop nor could they produce evidence of attendance.
In the same investigation report, the IGG also implicated other parliament staff; Julian Kaganzi, Chief Procurement Officer, Patrick Lassu, Senior Procurement Officer, Abdu Kasule Kagimu, Public Affairs Officer, Sam Bosio, Assistant Inventory Management Officer and Barbara Nabitaka, Public Affairs Officer, over an irregular procurement of a camera at Shs148m and camera stand at Shs3.4m in June 2015.
IGG RECOMMENDATIONS
In her report, the IGG tasked Parliament leadership to ensure that the directors; Wabwire and Bakwega refund Shs48,139,600 and Shs51,095,600 respectively within a period of 3months. She also recommended that Wabwire and Bakwega are sent to the parliamentary commission for disciplinary action for receiving funds to attend a training abroad, which they did not attend but fraudulently accounted for the money.
Similarly, the IGG also recommended that the other staff; Bosia and Nabitaka are sacked with immediate effect over irregularly procurement of a camera and that the Parliamentary Commission severely reprimands Kagimu for neglect of duty and breach of procurement procedures when acting as Contract Managing while Kaganzi and Lassu were also supposed to face the disciplinary committee for neglect of duty.
IGG RECOMMENDATION IGNORED
It is nearly two years since the IGG’s report and Parliament that is supposed to be the epicenter of transparency and accountability, has ignored the recommendation to reprimand and sack the parliament staff involved in corruption tendencies.
The Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga, who is the head of the institution, has decided to bury her head in the sand rather than taking stringent measures against the corrupt. As an alternative, her institution has gone ahead to reward the staff implicated in the corruption scandal. All the 7 are still holding their portfolios without any disciplinary action taken as recommended by the IGG. Perhaps, they are now even more comfortable in their positions like never before. Rather than shaming the corrupt, Kadaga has allowed the implicated parliament staff to take the “walk of fame” by rewarding and adoring them as if to suggest that corruption is only a disease for other institutions and not Parliament.
Kadaga has on several occasions drummed for a corrupt free Uganda, but her failure to reign over the corrupt in her own institution of Parliament is an indicator that her drums are a manifestation of hypocrisy and only a lip service.
