The other unit that is under investigation is the fuel department.
The Chief of Defence Forces (CDF), Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba has ordered the immediate arrest of Brigadier Bekunda Besigye, the Joint Staff Chief Engineering and several senior officers attached to the UPDF Engineers Brigade over alleged corruption and misuse of public funds.
In a statement, Gen Muhoozi accused the implicated officers of betraying the core values of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces, especially its commitment to self-sufficiency and integrity.
“Yesterday, I ordered the arrest of Brig. Bekunda Besigye and other officers of the Engineers Brigade,” Gen Muhoozi declared.
He noted, “They poisoned, contaminated and desecrated a sacred principle we have always embraced as UPDF i.e. we can be self-sufficient, we can be efficient.”
The accused officers allegedly received large sums of money meant for construction and engineering works under the UPDF and misappropriated the funds, undermining both efficiency and public trust.
“They received monies and misused it! Let their punishment serve as a lesson to others,” Muhoozi said.
Eagle Online has learnt from sources that some of the arrested individuals were lending money to the Engineering brigade and had conspired most constructors who are majorly Chinese companies in the syndicate.
“We have evidence of these individuals’ lending money to the very unit employing them. Actually, one accountant meant to pay and procure goods and service on behalf of the unit was now lending the unit”. A source told this website.
The said accountant who is said to be wealthy is at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and hails from the South Western district of Kisoro is extremely rich that he owns over 50 Sino-trucks which he hires out to the construction unit. Others under investigations are two accounts at the rank of Colonel. It is said that although Brig. Besigye and Col. Tukamwakira have been arrested, the man is the storm is this accountant who seem to have survived storms right from the early 1990’s. He is said to be a smooth operator that he has managed to swim the storms but remains at the helm of things.
Sources say the CDF is mooting the idea of attaching their property that is scattered all over greater Kampala and other parts for auction in order to recover the money.
In a shocking escalation, the CDF warned that harsher consequences await those who have plundered public resources on an even larger scale.
In one the incidences during the interrogations and search on the officials, the investigators recovered Shs1.5 billion which was being transferred to the bank account of Brig. Besigye and the money has since been intercepted and is going to be used as evidence against him at the court marital which source told Eagle Online will soon resume in August after the ongoing constitution of the court leadership is complete. Col. Godfrey Tukamwakira who is Brig. Besigye deputy has been in Makindye barracks for close a month after the audit implicated the unit.
The other unit that is under investigation is the fuel department.
“For those who have stolen more than Shs1 billion from the people of Uganda, we shall put them in front of a firing squad!” he warned.
Severely, Gen Muhoozi has emphasized that corruption and mismanagement pose serious threats to the force’s operational efficiency and the welfare of its soldiers.
“Any individual or group with selfish interests—whether corruption, misappropriation of resources, or mismanagement of any kind—must reform immediately or leave our cherished UPDF before they are exposed,” he warned.
Muhoozi expresses the most forceful anti-corruption stances by the UPDF’s top leadership in recent years, signaling a zero-tolerance policy on internal graft.
