Four OPM officials arrested over poor quality relief items for Kasese flood victims
The State House Anti-Corruption Unit has together with police arrested four officials from the Office of the Prime Minister over the purchase of poor quality relief items for victims of the recent floods in Kasese.
According to the unit’s head, Col, Edith Nakalema, the four are part of the nine OPM officials interdicted after a directive from the Prime Minister, Robinah Nabbanja in relation to the procurement of alleged substandard food and non-items items including blankets and mosquito nets worth shs10 billion meant for Kasese flood victims.
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She named the four arrested OPM officials as Godfrey Kayima, the accounting officer, Henry Agaba Tumwine, the internal auditor, Rose Nakabogo, the acting commissioner in charge of disaster preparedness, and Esther Odongo, the procurement officer.
Kampala Metropolitan deputy police spokesperson, Luke Owoyesigyire said investigations are still ongoing to get more information on how the procurement of the alleged substandard supplies was done.
The development comes a few weeks after Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja rejected relief items that had been delivered by officials from the Office of the Prime Minister to the Kasese flood victims.
The items included 40,000kgs of maize flour, 20,000kgs of beans, 2,000kgs of sugar, 2,000 tarpaulins, 1,350 jerricans, 1,000 basins,100 cartons of laundry soap, 1,000 mosquito nets, 100 blankets, and 100 mats.
“Kasese is not a dumping ground, I have rejected blankets and mosquito nets because they are substandard. The supplier must bring good ones because these are the things that paint a bad image for our government,” Nabbanja said last month.
Nabbanja said whereas the mosquito nets were too small, the blankets too were too light and not fit to be used by human beings.
“I have directed that they are returned to Kampala because they are substandard,” she said.
The development comes after a group of four other OPM officials were last year interdicted over inaccuracies in Covid relief items supply.
During the first lockdown, four OPM officials including the then Permanent Secretary, Christine Guwatudde Kintu, Accountant Joel Wanjala, Assistant Commissioner for Procurement Fred Lutimba and Commissioner for Disaster Management Martin Owor were accused of false accounting during the purchase of relief food including posho and beans.
