Politics, dirty tricks cited as parliament grills judiciary over "missing" Shs 3.2 bn

On Monday, officials from Judiciary led by the Permanent Secretary Kagole Kivumbi, went through a torrid time in Parliament as they tried to explain accountability for Shs 3.2 billion that was meant for the automated electronic court case management system.

According to the Auditor General's report, the money was received but there is no evidence that it was put to use.

It has now emerged that the money is in fact not "missing."

In fact, sources say politics is at the forefront of this probe as some judicial officers try to undermine Kivumbi.

Kivumbi told the MPs led by Nandala Mafabi that some of this money was spent on unforeseeable activities such as recruitment of judges, buying new vehicles for them, court sessions, mediation medical allowances and Monitoring and Evaluation among others.

A Judicial Officer who preferred anonymity told The Nile Post that the fight started when Shs Shs22.3b was released for salary enhancement of judicial officers last year.

"They started fighting the accounting officer because they all wanted a piece of the cake yet he could not allow them," the source said.

We have been told that upon realising that Kivumbi will not yield to some of their demands, they hatched a plan to discredit him.

The plan was to use a scandal of junior accounts staff to bring him down and show that he has misused money.

Their hope was that the Secretary to the Treasury, Keith Muhakanizi would strip him of all his powers as accounting officer and give them to Kivumbi's assistant.

This failed but Kivumbi now lives in fear.

These officers now want to use Parliament's Public Accounts Committee as a platform to undermine Kivumbi's credibility.

They have reportedly enlisted some MPs in this scheme.

As the proceedings heated up, Kivumbi was put on oath.

Nandala has apparently invited the Director of Criminal Investigations Department, Grace Akullo to take part in today's session claiming that there could be collusion between some judicial officers and CID.