President Museveni’s rally in Kween on Tuesday saw drama as the area RDC, Hope Atuhaire, and district NRM chairman, Steven Mangusho, traded accusations before the President.
The accusations started when the President asked Atuhaire to explain “some of the words” he was hearing in the district.
“I am told there is some issue with your RDC. What is the problem?” Museveni said, before asking Atuhaire to come to the podium to explain herself.
In her defence, the RDC said that having been in Kween for the past two years, she found widespread corruption that she tried to fight — but it fought back.
“I found people who are very corrupt. Today, we got an issue of an independent candidate called (Jacob) Chelogoi Motors. He fights everybody, he fights every development, and he fights me in particular because I have fought corruption,” the RDC said.
“What I found is that people who are stealing PDM money bring National ID cards of people who are dead, put telephone numbers of live people, and get the money themselves.”
She said some of them are SACCO leaders.
“You find a chairman has taken money; the wife, child, and relatives have all taken PDM. You find like Shs5 million or Shs7 million in one household.”
Atuhaire said she has evidence, with Shs35 million so far recovered, while seven SACCO leaders have been remanded.
The RDC said money for road construction was embezzled by engineers and that they were pinned by the IGG’s reports.
“Money for road construction was eaten by the engineers who are supposed to work on the road. We have a committee investigating that, but what they tell the committee is, ‘Let us leave the things (embezzlement).’ Money for murram, sand, all the aggregates was eaten while the culverts were not installed.”
“Those are the ones. I have all the evidence. They don’t want to be talked about, and they say money is for government, it must be eaten. I put my foot down and said none will eat it as long as I have seen them. They want to hide the crimes.”
Museveni then asked the NRM district chairman, Steven Mangusho, who had earlier raised the issue with the RDC, to explain.
He, however, accused the RDC and the former CAO of conniving to embezzle money, especially for roads.
“For the last two years, the Shs1.2 billion for roads of Kween was eaten. The RDC was there and the former CAO. They were conniving. As the RDC is the head of monitoring of roads but wasn’t doing anything. We brought the IGG to solve the problem of murram whose money was eaten, but the RDC was just looking without arresting anybody,” Mangusho said.
He said the RDC was colluding with the former CAO, who has since retired.
However, the Soi County MP, Abdi Fadhil Chemaswet, who is also the district roads committee chairperson, jumped to the defence of the RDC.
“Your Excellency, 2022 and 2023 monies were not spent well. I wrote a letter as chairman to the DPC to investigate the culprits because they didn’t spend Shs1 billion well,” he said.
Chemaswet said the money is too little to cover the over 200 km of roads in the district. He, however, defended the RDC as one being fought.
“The problem is politics. This is a political season, and now some individuals want the RDC transferred so that they handle their politics. The RDC hasn’t eaten money; it is only a political situation.”
Museveni Makes Final Decision
President Museveni said he would send an auditor to find out what exactly happened.
“I am now going to send my auditor to handle this issue of roads and PDM so that we get to the truth. We are going to get the truth through auditing. God will help us,” he said.
The President, however, implored elected leaders from LC1 to LC5 to help fight corruption in their areas.
“The people to fight corruption are our elected leaders. That’s why we introduced the system of LCs. We already had other administrators like sub-county and parish chiefs, but they were corrupt. When we were in the bush, we agreed that to be on the safe side, people should elect their own leaders to supervise these civil servants. That’s why we have the LC system — to check the civil servants.”
