Pension thief Lwamafa didn’t deserve presidential pardon, says DP

Opposition Democratic Party has said that former Permanent Secretary, Jimmy Lwamafa didn’t deserve pardon by the president since his offence caused untold suffering to Ugandans.

Addressing journalists on Tuesday, Uganda Young Democrats president, Ismail Kirya said pardoning Lwamafa has set a bad precedent for the country.

“Pardoning inmates is good but which kind of inmates are you pardoning. We have many political prisoners on lighter sentences who are more deserving than Lwamafa. He caused the country to lose billions of shillings and you pardon him on account of being elderly? Should we say he is the only elderly person in prison,” Kirya said.

The UYD president insisted that by pardoning Lwamafa, a person convicted of stealing pension funds, many others might be encouraged to steal government funds with hope of getting pardoned.

“Now you have opened the door to all those who want to embezzle the funds with a mind of pardoning them. Since you have decided to pardon him, you are giving leeway to other civil servants to do the same since they know they can at one time be pardoned. The right thing would be to only tightening the noose around those who steal public funds. Let people convicted on bribery and misuse of public office serve their sentences.”

The Uganda Prisons spokesperson, Frank Baine on Monday said President Museveni had pardoned Lwamafa on humanitarian grounds, for being terminally ill but also due to his old age.

Speaking on Tuesday, the UYD president questioned the criteria for singling out Lwamafa.

“Lwamafa is not the oldest person in prison in Uganda. There are so many people who are eligible for pardoning due to their old age but haven’t been considered.”

DP also asked the president to pardon the many political prisoners.

By the time of his pardon, Lwamafa was serving a seven and  nine year jail terms after being convicted by the Anti Corruption Court on two different but related pension scam cases in which over shs165 billion was stolen.

According to the prisons spokesperson, Frank Baine, Lwamafa was part of a larger group of 200 prisoners who were pardoned on humanitarian grounds.

He said these were part of the 1800 prisoners recommended for pardon to the committee on prerogative of mercy in the different prisons across the country.

“We submitted up to 1800 names for pardon including all the prisoners on death row who have finished their appeal process, all petty offenders who have finished 50% of their sentences, pregnant and suckling mothers that have finished 50% of their cases, the elderly who have also finished 50% of their sentences and the terminally sick who have finished at least a quarter of their sentences,” Baine said.

He noted that in assessment the committee looked at their recommendation and only 200 were recommended to the president for pardon.

“It is the committee’s discretion to forward those to the president for pardon.  This is a total pardon and all are going home.”