By Kinyera Anthony Lakomekec
The Lapul Sub-county Assistant Secretary (SAS) in Pader district has been accused of mismanaging Shs. 29 million meant for Ogom sub-county activities for the financial years 2017/2018 and 2018/2019.
The current sub-county chief for Lapul, Mr. Francis Ochitti is accused of mismanaging funds which were meant to purchase solar for administration block at Shs5 million, furniture at Shs6 million, and installation of solar at Ogom health center III at Shs7 million.
Others are misappropriated funds include that of community access road fund for the financial year 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 at Shs7.9million and Shs3.7million respectively, went missing without clear accountability.
Pader district internal auditors, Mr. Jimmy Ochan and Mr. Kenneth Opwonya in their findings said that the projects that were supposed to be implemented by the above funds were not put to use.
“The accused person failed to avail us with bank statements to verify the alleged claims he made.For that, we hereby instruct the chief administrative officer to direct the accused to avail bank statements for the transactions and recover the lost fund,” they added.
However, the accused sub-county chief, Mr. Francis Ochitti said that there was no audit done since his accountant was bedridden in the hospital.
He further accused the district audit team of forging the reports that he alleged were copied from the chairperson’s report.
“There was no audit work done by the district audit teams, but a report from the then sub-county chairperson, Mr. Charles Lalobo Otto, was the one incorporated as the final audit report,” Mr. Ochitti asserted.
Meanwhile, Mr. Otto refuted the claims of the sub-county chief by saying that an audit was done by the district internal audit teams independently, and he (Ochitti) was found to have mismanaged Shs. 29million for the different projects.
The Pader resident district commissioner, Mr. Milton Odongo said that he will investigate the allegation to ascertain the whereabouts of the funds.
The community in Pader district is currently in suspense over what the Inspectorate of Government (IG) is doing in the district as there are high cases of alleged corruption with empirical shreds of evidence, but no actions taken.
They are calling for immediate government intervention to curb the increasing corruption to help service delivery to the locals.
Do you have a story in your community or an opinion to share with us: Email us at editorial@watchdoguganda.com
