By Our Reporter
The State House Anti-corruption Unit is investigating a whistleblower’s allegations of corruption and mismanagement at the Ministry of ICT and National Guidance, the Unit’s spokesperson has said.
Ms Mariam Natasha Oduka, the Unit’s spokesperson, says investigators visited the ministry office in Kampala’s Central Business District on May 4 and confiscated computers and mobile phones from some of the staff members.
“Yes, we raided the ICT house last week after receiving information from the whistleblower,” Ms Oduka said. “For now, we have not made any arrests, our officers are verifying the allegations made by the whistleblower. I will be providing details later.”
The whistleblower report alleged corruption and mismanagement during the development of the Parish Based Management Information System (PBMIS), meant to support the Parish Development Model (PDM), a flagship government programme.
The whistleblower also alleged mishandling of funds meant for innovation hubs and the National ICT Initiatives Support Programme (NISSP), nepotism, irregular procurement, as well as inflated and diverted costs of an advertising deal with a local private television station.
Ms Amina Zawedde, the ministry’s permanent secretary, confirmed the investigation in an interview with this newspaper on Wednesday. She said mobile telephones taken from her subordinates had been returned and that the ministry was cooperating with the investigation.
“All the allegations levied against my officials are false and in fact others, like I employed my sister, are not true because I do not have any relatives working at the Ministry of ICT and National Guidance and whoever knows one should bring them,” she said.
Areas Of Focus
Investigators are looking at PBMIS, a system built and housed at the ministry to capture data of all households benefitting from the Shs1.14 trillion PDM project.
The whistleblower alleged to the State House Anti-Corruption Unit (Shacu) that ministry technocrats had swindled Shs12 billion meant to build it.
Ms Zawedde, however, said the system, although still under development, is operating. “This system has been used to register over 50 percent and what we want is to register each and every household and get to know each and every beneficiary’s details. And this will help us to know who is eligible,” she said.
“I even offer to take anyone who would wish to come to the ministry and see this system physically; it is functioning. In fact I will soon call a press conference and show the nation this system and prove all these are lies,” she added.
The December 2022 Auditor General’s Report highlighted slow data collection for the system.
“I noted that PDM baseline data collection was exercised only in 169 of 181 local governments and the exercise was incomplete and behind schedule at a completion rate of 41 percent,” the report noted.
The permanent secretary also defended a more than Shs500m advertising contract given to a small local private TV station based in one of Kampala’s suburbs and denied defying a presidential directive to direct all government advertising to UBC, the national broadcaster.
More Accusations
The whistleblower also accused Ms Zawedde of nepotism in recruitments and promotions, as well as irregular procurements. Also, the whistleblower alleged mismanagement of NIISP, which was established in 2017 after President Museveni directed then-ICT minister Frank Tumwebaze to establish innovation parks countrywide and set aside Shs15b to support youth ICT innovations.
In response, Ms Zawedde said: “The innovation fund that was set up by the President is the one that we are leveraging on to support these innovations. For example, on PBMIS, each module has a number of innovators who come as companies. We are supporting youth in creating employment opportunities. We have also supported a number of students’ innovations in institutions across the country.”
The raid on the ministry follows earlier fights within the ministry over payments of pension arrears that pitted technocrats against some of the institution’s political leaders. It also follows a fight over the planned reintegration of projects into the mother ministry as part of the government’s MDA rationalisation plan.
Source: Daily Monitor
