[UAH] How OPM corruption scandal got the hunter being hunted

http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/Commentary/How-OPM-corruption-scandal--got-the-hunter-being-hunted/-/689364/1906750/-/7w3u23/-/index.html

 

 

 

When the CIID chief, Ms Grace Akullo, last year started investigations into the financial misappropriation in the Office of the Prime Minister, she was determined to bring the culprits to book; she set out her dogs. They went on a good mission. But the Sunday Monitor's Chris Obore, in this analysis, looks at how the investigations boss could have failed to read the interests of her bosses and pressed a self-destruct button.

Police investigations into fraud scadals in the Office of the Prime Minister [OPM] and other ministries have been hit by a fight between technocrats and investigators.
Politicians are fueling it. New reports suggest that the head of Crime Intelligence and Investigations Directorate, Ms Grace Akullo, who led the hunt against suspected fraudsters, is now facing several probes against her over the manner in which she handled investigations.
Both Ms Akullo and Mr Pius Bigirimana (former OPM permanent secretary) vehemently refused any discussion on the subject when the Sunday Monitor sounded them out.
"Please my name has been everywhere, I don't want it anymore," said Mr Bigirimana while Ms Akullo said she had been accused of dealing with the media.
The scandal in the OPM, in which at least Sh60 billion was stolen, has got the prime suspect, Godfrey Kazinda, a five year-jail term. The accountant has since appealed against the sentence.
Other trials over the scam are ongoing at the Anti-Corruption Court. The OPM scandal, although not the biggest theft so far witnessed, attracted robust public debate after donors pulled the strings. They would in the subsequent days tighten the financial taps to Uganda, leaving the taxpayer with a staring budget to finance.
Of the more than Shs60 billion meant for Peace, Recovery and Development Programme (PRDP) for war-torn northern region and Karamoja Sub-region, at least Shs33.8 billion was donors' contribution. The government refunded donor funds as a condition for further donor support.
This scandal came to fore after Mr Bigirimana [who has since been transferred to Gender ministry] "blew the whistle" that Mr Kazinda had indulged in suspicious financial transactions. Mr Bigirimana also asked the Auditor General to carry out a forensic audit. The audit confirmed the theft which involved officials in Bank of Uganda and the Ministry of Finance.

What happened?
Initially, Ms Akullo and Mr Bigirimana appeared to work well and shared relevant information.
However, they later disagreed over the conduct of the investigations. The CIID chief blamed Mr Bigirimana for reportedly trying to shield some of the OPM staff whom she needed to interrogate. In Ms Akullo's view, according to our investigations, to get to the bottom of the theft, police needed to question all the players.
Mr Bigirimana accused Ms Akullo of derailing investigations by not focusing it. According to Mr Bigirimana, the Auditor General had carried out technical investigations, therefore; police should work to prove the findings of the AG with a view to prosecute those involved. He thought that police lacked technical ability to examine financial documents. Both insisted on their line of thought.
At this point, there were already public calls for Mr Bigirimana to resign from his job. The demand was so intense that it got Mr Bigirimana agitated. The police intensified their visits to OPM and asking civil servants to account for monies they received for any work in OPM.
Mr Bigirimana petitioned the police chief, Gen Kale Kayihura, saying Ms Akullo was disrupting work instead of investigating the theft. He blamed her for reportedly going for junior staff while trying to protect the fraud architects.
Our sources familiar with the whole saga saythe police chief would intervene by asking Ms Akullo to listen to Mr Bigirimana.
However, Ms Akullo threatened to resign if she was not allowed to interrogate all the OPM staff involved, including Mr Bigirimana. Gen Kayihura was stunned by this and reportedly took a laid-back role.
It turned into a turf war between Ms Akullo and Mr Bigirimana. Ms Akullo vowed to leave no stone unturned while Mr Bigirimana said he would not allow police to victimise all workers under him. Police continued to raid OPM and dragging staffers to Crime Intelligence directorate at Kireka. The staffers accused police of using the probe to extract bribes from them.
At this time, the internal wrangles in OPM came to fore. Staffers wrote several anonymous dossiers to police, revealing what they said was rot in the OPM and blamed it on Mr Bigirimana. But Mr Bigirimana insisted that the dossiers were part of the campaign to derail the investigators from focusing on the culprits. The police were accused of taking bribes from Mr Kazinda and his co-accused. This incensed Ms Akullo who blamed it on Mr Bigirimana but the PS was also enraged by allegations of incompetence and cover-up.

Museveni gets into the mix
The matter failed to be resolved by Gen Kayihura especially because while he tried to mediate between the two, they also reached President Museveni individually. At times, Mr Museveni personally called each of the two separately to get their views. He also gave each of them different instructions.
While the police was doing their job, Mr Museveni also asked Special Forces intelligence to investigate both Ms Akullo and Mr Bigirimana. He would not tell them his parallel findings but sources say Mr Museveni faulted the Auditor General for having not unearthed the theft earlier. This is what informed his defence of Mr Bigirimana as a whistle-blower.
He reportedly wanted Ms Akullo to liaise with Mr Bigirimana but would not say it directly to her. After all, the two had already developed an icy relationship. But to appear on the good books of the President, both Ms Akullo and Mr Bigirimana called Mr Museveni regularly to plead their cases.
The operation concentrated between the President, Gen Kayihura, Ms Akullo and Mr Bigirimana with back-up from Special Forces Guard. But Mr Museveni was clearly inclined to Mr Bigirimana's side yet he reportedly continued to encourage Ms Akullo to do her work without fear or favour; and report to him any obstacles. In meetings, he would refer to her as 'my daughter'.
The President reportedly pleaded with Ms Akullo to help him "catch all the thieves that are diverting money he would have used to develop infrastructure."
On the basis of this presidential "backing", Ms Akullo reportedly updated Mr Museveni constantly. Sometimes she would reportedly reach the President without Gen Kayihura's clearance. This appears to be one of the strategic blunders on her part.
Mr Museveni would summon Ms Akullo to State House to brief him. But he would also alert the accused to turn up without Ms Akullo's knowledge. Two of such meetings turned ugly as Ms Akullo faced the people she was investigating right before the President.
Some of the suspects accused Ms Akullo of not understanding government bureaucracy and carrying out investigations in the media with a view to embarrass civil servants. The CIID chief was particularly accused of reportedly tipping journalists on who would appear at CIID for interrogation.
The bureaucrats argued that police investigations should have been discreet because not everyone summoned to police was guilty yet the media coverage created an impression that all of them were thieves. They told Mr Museveni that, for that reason, the civil servants were disinterested in helping police.
Mr Bigirimana had also recorded statements from civil servants who reportedly confessed having given money to police under duress. Mr Museveni assembled another team to investigate the police, including Ms Akullo.
The reports of police investigators receiving bribes appeared to carry meaning because at one point, Ms Akullo faced a crisis after most of her team gave excuses for not turning up to work.
Allegations are that after receiving bribes, some detectives faked family problems and failed to report to work forcing Ms Akullo to keep reshuffling her team. Mr Museveni was disturbed by Ms Akullo's alleged media involvement in her work and the detectives profiteering from the scandal. Ms Akullo had also been accused of attempting to exonerate Mr Kazinda.
But in most of her reports to Mr Museveni, the CIID chief mentioned Mr Bigirimana as a major obstacle to speedy investigations yet the donors needed to see action taken against the suspects before they could loosen the financial taps. She also spoke against Ms Flavia Waduwa, the undersecretary for Pacification.
It would appear Ms Akullo failed to read Mr Museveni's mind. Sources say he urged her to work with Mr Bigirimana to catch the thieves then she could later investigate him if he had a case but the CIID chief insisted on treating the PS as a suspect. She reportedly argued that without Mr Bigirimana, there would be no successful prosecutions. Ms Akullo appeared to sell her strategy to a subtly unwilling customer [Museveni].

Politics at play
Apparently, when the scandal became fodder for public commentators, it also brought out the internal political dynamics in the ruling NRM party. Sections of the party leaders took sides with public servants. The MPs were drawn in. Reports of money being used to further political ambitions of rival camps added flavour to the debate. The ministers under OPM were divided between the Kazinda and Bigirimana's camps.
Interestingly, the ministers who reportedly received weekend "fuel" from Kazinda became his defenders while those who got from Mr Bigirimana, supported him all through. Some resorted to trading information from one camp to another in return for 'inducements'.
Mr Bigirimana sold the view that financial loss in the government was not limited to OPM and that it was rush for police to pronounce him a suspect. He said he had bust the racket which involved Ministry of Finance and Bank of Uganda, therefore; police should treat him as a witness.
Mr Museveni's parallel investigators found some merit in Mr Bigirimana's allegations. And on February 17, 2008, the Sunday Monitor also published an article titled: Exposed: Money racket in govt, which exposed how the Integrated Financial Management System [IFMS] had been abused by a racket of civil servants. At that time, bureaucrats charged with managing the system, used it to create false suppliers and paid out billions of money to them. They targeted ministries with big budgets like Works, Health and Education. In one of the fake payments, Ministry of Works lost Shs542 million. The PS then was threatened that he would host bullets in his body if he fought the culprits.

Fast forward
Buoyed by reports from Ministry of Finance that local revenue could finance the national budget, Mr Museveni was reluctant to succumb to donor pressure to refund the money and sack Mr Bigirimana. It was only later when he consulted URA boss Allen Kagina that it dawned on him that he had been misled. URA's collections wouldn't meet the budget demands. He immediately ordered for the refund of the donor funds to soothe the enraged development partners. To calm them further, he later moved Mr Bigirimana away from OPM.

The final straw
The arrest of Ms Waduwa galvanized civil servants. Police wrote through Mr Bigirimana asking Waduwa to report to CIID headquarters and to carry with her all documents about PRDP.
Mr Bigirimana wrote back to police asking them to specify which documents Ms Waduwa should carry because as accounting officer, he would not allow all OPM accountability to be taken to police.
The police never specified. Instead they stormed OPM to arrest Ms Waduwa, accusing her of ignoring police summons. She was tipped. Ms Waduwa sneaked out of her office and drove to CIID. On arrival, she was arrested. The media captured the drama. Ms Waduwa was to spend a night in police cells but Gen Kayihura ordered for her release after Mr Bigirimana's intervention.
Ms Waduwa raised a complaint to head of Public Service accusing police of persecution. She argued that she had not ignored police summons but that she was summoned through the PS, therefore; she couldn't carry OPM documents to police without clearance from her boss as per public service standing orders.
She pleaded that police action was aimed at having her name in the media in bad faith. The head of Public Service, John Mitala, wrote the Gen Kayihura asking him to investigate what he described as disturbing issues.
Sources say President Museveni also received petitions from senior civil servants against Ms Akullo. He reportedly asked IGG to investigate. Sources say IGG has written to Ms Akullo to answer to the allegations against her work methods.
The IGG acknowledges receipt of the petitions but wouldn't discuss the details.
Ms Akullo emphatically declined to discuss the matter in spite of our several attempts. "You analyse the situation your way. Surely I have no comment; can I fight corruption alone? There is a lot that could be going on."
Sources, however, say she is deflated and says only God will be her protector.
Apparently, the CIID boss believes she has become a target especially after the PS Health Asuman Lukwago alleged that police tried to poison him. Mr Lukwago is also at war with Ms Akullo over fraud related investigations.
Since the confusion generated by the OPM scandal, Ms Akullo's speed has slowed down yet there is still the pension scandal to prosecute, the Ministry of Local Government theft and Ministry of Trade among others.
The hunter's [Akullo] morale appears dim partly because the hunted are equally on her trail. And the chance to dig into theft of money in the government could be blown away!

What experts said about Bigirimana's role

Last month, this newspaper reported that more than Shs8 billion stolen from the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) was taken using the forged signature of Mr Pius Bigirimana, according to findings of a South African fraud expert. Mr Bigirimana, the former permanent secretary at OPM, has been moved to the Gender Ministry.
In a confidential letter to the Minister of Finance, Ms Maria Kiwanuka, which is copied to the deputy governor of Bank of Uganda (BoU), Mr Louis Kasekende, the governor, Mr Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile, reveals that the bank engaged an independent South African consultant to examine the OPM financial documents "after some signatories disowned signatures on the documents against which payments were effected".
Among the findings, he said, of the 120 documents cashed by BoU, only 21 of them had Mr Bigirimana's genuine signature.
On five documents amounting to Shs1.14 billion, the BoU consultant was unable to tell whether the signatures were forged or not. At least 19 of the documents amounting to Shs1.9 billion were signed by the undersecretary, Ms Flavia Waduwa, but five of them amounting to Shs307 million reportedly had Ms Waduwa's forged signature.

The CIID boss whose work exposed her to trouble

Ms Akullo has served the Uganda Police Force for more than 10 years, but she only became famous a year ago when she took on high-profile corruption cases, her first case involving Godfrey Kazinda, a former principal accountant in the Office of the Prime Minister.
The CIID boss is said to have raised 13 children, four biological, three steps and six adopted, a thing which she has laced her work with - treating all detectives as her own children. When you enter her office, the motherliness is evident - a picture or two of her children occupy the walls.
Even on a busy day, at 6pm, she has to pick one of her children from school. She proudly talks of her children, hinting on how she will go an extra mile to ensure that all her children have equal privilege.
Unlike many people in her position, Akullo takes time to ask all those queued up at her office what their concerns are. Although her schedule is tight, the CIID director knows that people need her help and she assigns detectives to help solve their problems or direct them to concerned offices.
Akullo is a jolly lady, who talks loudly, her words not necessarily emphasising her authority and for each complaint or point made, she has a story to tell and she will narrate the stories in brief.
[Monitor]