How Shs400m toilet cost senior government official his job

On Friday, Kagole Kivumbi was replaced as Permanent Secretary for the judiciary by Pius Bigirimana, who was in the Ministry of Gender.

Kivumbi was later asked to go on forced leave by President Museveni over unknown reasons as indicated in a letter he wrote to the Commissioner in charge of Human Resource Management.

“I am writing to inform you that the appointing authority has directed that I proceed on leave from today July 26 2019,”Kagole wrote in a letter dated July 26.

The Nile Post has however learnt that Kivumbi’s problems stemmed from queries in the 2018 Auditor General’s report that included two toilets that cost shs450 million.

Article 163 (3) of the Constitution gives the Auditor General powers to audit and report to Parliament on the public accounts of Uganda and of all public offices including the courts, the central and local government administrations, universities and public institutions of like nature, and any public corporations or other bodies established by an Act of Parliament.

In accordance with the above provisions, the Auditor General, John Muwanga released the audit report for 2018 and submitted it to parliament on December 31.

Among the issues highlighted was the manner in which the judiciary had constructed two flush toilets at a tune of shs450 million.

The report was presented to parliament and early this month, the Parliamentary Accounts Committee summoned officials from the judiciary led by the Permanent Secretary, who is also the accounting officer, Kagole Kivumbi to explain how the money was used.

One of the toilets cost shs13 million and was located at the Chief Justice Bart Katureebe’s home whereas, the second one that allegedly cost shs436 million was at the magistrate's court in Entebbe.

The two toilets had been constructed by Palwan Engineering Works Limited.

The PAC members led by Nathan Nandala Mafabi quizzed Kivumbi to explain how the two expensive toilets look.

“We need to see pictures of those toilets that cost over shs400 million,”Mafabi said.

Shs32 billion

The Parliamentary Accounts Committee further quizzed Kivumbi over Shs32 billion that was not being accounted for.

He later tabled documents showing names of judiciary officers onto whose personal accounts the money was directly wired.

The money had been diverted from the shs134 billion that had been allocated to the judiciary in the 2017/2018 financial year.

The document showed eight staff on whose account over shs800 million had been wired without clear accountability.

PAC members demanded to know the reason why the money had been sent to individual officers without any work done to warrant money being given to them.

The legislators were also shocked to learn that huge sums of money were leaving the judiciary account but the same could not properly be accounted for by the accounting officer.

Earlier, Kivumbi had been accused of obstructing PAC’s work by lying that he was sick to dodge questions.

When he later showed up, he could not remember the health facility where he had undergone treatment prompting MPs to accuse him of contempt of parliament.