Africa-Press – Uganda. Parliament has directed the Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities to formally table a statement updating the House on the alleged Shs60 billion corruption scandal reported to have been masterminded within the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) information technology department, together with those within its financial department.
The call for the statement follows a series of media reports indicating that at least 16 officials at UWA had been suspended to, among other things, pave way for investigations into the said Shs60 billion corruption scandal.
The demand for a statement was raised by the Rubanda West lawmaker, Mr Moses Kamuntu.
Through a procedural matter, he called for answers as why the government had opted to keep silent despite the media publishing the matter, showing how billions of shillings are lost in corruption yet the government needs funds to develop tourism infrastructure.
“We have seen the UWA department under tourism where a lot of money has disappeared for Gorilla and Chimpanzee tracking up to a tune of Shs60 billion. Rt Hon Speaker, you are aware that the tourism roads are in a bad shape and here money is disappearing,” Mr Kamuntu said.
In the same vein, Mr Kamuntu asked that the issue be referred to the Parliamentary Committee on Trade chaired by the Mbarara City South MP, Mr Mwine Mpaka, for thorough investigation.
To this end, the Deputy Speaker, Mr Thomas Tayebwa, who chaired the plenary session yesterday, called on the State Minister for Tourism, Mr Martin Mugarra, to update the House on the Shs60 billion scandal and table a formal statement on the same, something the latter pledged to do before Parliament today.
“If need be, tomorrow (today) I can come before the House and give a proper statement on this matter,” Mr Mugarra said.
Whereas he undertook to table the statement today, Mr Mugarra indicated that his office was already aware and had instituted an investigation into the issue. He added that the issue only leaked to the media before the public got to know of it.
The aforementioned scandal comes off as one of the latest scandals within government sucking its officials despite the persistent tough talk made by state officials, including President Museveni, on the fight against the vice.
About a fortnight ago, the Inspector General of Government (IGG), Ms Beti Kamya, unveiled three sets of Bi-annual Performance reports that were handed over to Parliament for further scrutiny.
Key among the findings carried in the said reports, the IGG discovered that Shs1.5 trillion was lost in the education sector due to teacher absenteeism.
The same reports were on Wednesday tabled before Parliament and the respective committees of Parliament are expected to extract particular matters contained therein for scrutiny and later report back to the House.
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