At least 2000 ghost accounts were fictiously created with several bank accounts to help Ministry of Public Service officials fiddle with over Shs165b in pension money-leaving pensioners in dire straits, a senior spy revealed today.
Grace Akullo, the Criminal Intelligence and Investigations Department (CIID) director, told Parliament that the “case is too complex” but insisted that the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) will reinstate the charges.
“It was complex case in terms of the method which was used to steal this money. Initially, we talked of Shs165b and later alone went Shs169b after we [police] went in and did a lot of hard work to crack down on a lot of documents in the Public Service ministry. At least 2000 ghosts had to be created and each ghost had documents in the bank,” Ms Akullo said.
Ms Akullo joined a list of senior officials that have been struggling to explain how the case that left thousands of pensioners penniless while a court case against government officials who stole the money crumbled after police detectives were bribed to stifle the investigation.
Ms Akullo this week revealed that two police detectives pocketed kickbacks to kill the case.
Rattled by the revelations, Parliament today directed police to arrest George Komurubuga and Moses Kato-the detectives that were named as having snaffled the kickbacks to frustrate prosecution of the case and ultimately led to court dismissing it.
Several government officials have been giving contradicting versions over how the case was bungled up with the Inspector General of Government (IGG) Irene Mulyagonja blaming the Judiciary and the police while the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) attributed the collapse of the case to “strange things”.
Police chief Kale Kayihura admitted there were” shortcomings on the part of some officers involved in the investigation”
With top government officials singing from different hymn books, all government agencies that were involve in the case will file a substantive response with Parliament this week.
Eagle online understands that President Museveni is furious with how the probe was handled and his tempers have not been helped by the ongoing tug-of war between police agencies investigating killings of Muslim leaders in Busoga region.
But Mr Museveni is wary of shuffling top police leadership in the run-up to an election.
Meanwhile, government agencies appear to be bracing themselves to cash in on next year’s elections with the police today tabling a Shs270b budget only to ensure security for the polls. The budget, half what the Electoral Commission has proposed at 376b, shocked MPs-who instantly rejected it.
