Africa-Press – Uganda. Corrupt leaders have allegedly stolen Shs131 million from various accounts owned by Emyooga Saving and Credit Cooperative Societies (Saccos) in Kole North, Kole District, since 2021.
Dr Samuel Opio Acuti, the Kole North County Member of Parliament, said the unaccounted funds “moved out of 15 Emyooga Sacco accounts from his constituency consistently without detection.”
“We I carried out the oversight [role] where I interacted with all stakeholders from the Sacco leaders, the beneficiaries and the district leaders and I even got hold of the bank statements. Now my findings were that a total of Shs131 million was literally stolen from the accounts,” the legislator said, adding that the amount withdrawn from the bank accounts exceeded what the beneficiaries received.
According to Dr Opio, for instance, Kole North Performing Artists Sacco received Shs13 million, but the amount withdrawn from their account was Shs30 million. This particular Sacco lost Shs17 million to that alleged fraud syndicate.
“Kole North Leaders Sacco received Shs46 million but the amount withdrawn from their bank account is Shs56 million. Kole Mechanics Sacco received Shs17 million, but Shs30 million was withdrawn from their account,” he said while briefing a team from the Directorate of Socio-Economic Monitoring and Research on the performance of Emyooga project, under the Office of the President Thursday.
“When you add all that, you realise a total of Shs131 million was stolen and it was systematic and coordinated fraud because it happened in 15 out of 16 Saccos in Kole North using the same trend,” he said.
Ms Fatuma Namukwaya, deputy head of the Anti-corruption Unit at Internal Security Organisation, directed their detectives to start an investigation into Emyooga and Parish Development Model (PDM) in Kole right away.
But the district chairman, Mr Moses Andrew Awany, said Dr Opio Acuti’s allegations are unfounded.
“Some of the things we do are for politics. Some of the politicians here had enrolled their campaign managers to manage PDM, when gaps were identified and they were eliminated, the whole livelihood programmes turned into something undesirable,” he said.
Mr Esau Ekachelan, the Kole District Chief Administrative Officer, also disagreed with Dr Opio that there is massive fraud in the livelihood programmes.
“As CAO, there are no problems here I’m telling you. If there are problems, they would have been brought to my attention,” he said.
About Emyooga
The presidential initiative on wealth and job creation (Emyooga) was launched in August 2019 as part of the broad government strategy targeting to transform 68 per cent of homesteads from subsistence to market-oriented production with the overall objective of promoting job creation and improving household incomes.
Source: Monitor
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