It seems government will stop at nothing in trying to recoup monies stolen by jailed former government employee Godfrey Kazinda. The same might apply to 42 senior government officials who shared Shs6 billion, allegedly on the orders of President Yoweri Museveni.
And today, appearing before Parliament, the Ombudsman Irene Mulyagonja said she has issued a moratoria on all property owned by Kazinda, former Principal Accountant in the Ministry of Public Service, who is serving his sentence in Luzira Prison for stealing public funds.
“Despite ongoing litigation, restraining order (moratoria) has been issued on some of the vehicles and other property believed to belong to Kazinda. If we are successful we shall be able to take over the property and return them to government,” Ms. Mulyagonja said.
Despite serving a jail term on cases of embezzlement, Mr Kazinda is facing accusations of possession of illicit wealth by the Inspectorate of Government, and already a fleet of his vehicles and his palatial Bukoto home are in the IGG’s bag.
Meanwhile, Ms Mulyagonja also told Parliament those who received the infamous shs6 billion ‘presidential handshake’ are on her radar too.
The 42 government officials were implicated by the House Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE), for each receiving between Shs60 million and Shs200 million, after reportedly helping Uganda win an oil litigation case against Heritage Oil, an oil and gas exploration firm. The firm had dragged the government to an arbitration court in the UK, and the said officials reportedly ‘helped’ government recover over US$700m.
“We received the report and there are specific areas where they asked us to investigate but broadly they wanted us to investigate whether there was any criminality attendant to the findings that the law was not followed in giving the 6bn to the officers involved,” the IGG said.
The only difference is that she doesn’t know when the investigations will end, and says they could go on for a while.
“As you carry out an investigation you keep running into other [sets of] information and you just can’t abandon the investigation before you each the conclusion of what is alleged,” she said.
