There was drama at Butebo District headquarters on Friday as State House Anti-Corruption Unit officials flogged the district Chief Finance Officer (CFO) during his arrest on corruption related charges.
Mr Simon Koowa Mutekanga and other senior civil servants at the district are accused of creating a ghost secondary school, Kanginima SS with a fictitious enrollment of 250 students.
The school has been reportedly receiving a quarterly release of Shs40 million from the government for the last three years.
When this publication last month visited Kanginima Sub County where the school was supposed to be, the residents said they had never seen the said institution in their area.
Mr Mutekanga is also accused of irregular remittances of funds to education institutions contrary to the government guidelines.
Dramatic scenes
He was on Friday summoned to appear before the State House officials who grilled him for hours about the allegations.
During the questioning, the State House officials told Mr Mutekanga that he was under arrest and would be arraigned before court to answer corruption charges.
On hearing this, Mutekanga, in attempt to elude arrest, excused himself and fled the administrative block where he was being grilled.
However, the officials gave a chase and intercepted him in a banana plantation near the district offices.
The visibly charged State House officials flogged Mutekanga several times and left his clothes in tatters before he was bundled into a waiting double cabin pick-up truck.
The arrest happened days after state house officials camped in the district to probe what some leaders described as “massive corruption cases” that have been allegedly choking the district and frustrating service delivery.
The team of State House officials on ground include Mr Samuel Arinaitwe, Mr Charles Mugerwa and Mr Samule Liwa.
The development comes after Butebo RDC, Mr Paul Mwidu Kalikwani in a September letter addressed to the State House Anti-Corruption Unit wrote demanding for a forensic investigation into the establishment of the ghost school in Butebo and other corruption scandals that have rocked the district.
Earlier, Mr Mutekanga and others including Ms Jacinta Ikesa [Planner], Ms Josephine Kanyi [Inspector of schools], Teopista Akia [internal Auditor], Mr Ben Okou Okiria [Senior Internal Auditor], and Mr Charles Wasumire [Accountant for education department), Mr Asakeri Makata [DEO], Mr Boyi Tasamba [former DEO], Evalyst Emong [Inspector in-charge counselling and guidance] and the Chief finance officer [CFO], Mr Koowa Mutekanga and Mr Kasim Asibu Kutosi, the former CAO, were arrested by police over the same allegations.
Mr Kalikwani, confirmed the arrest of Mutekanga by the State House Anti- Corruption Unit and said it was part of the effort to clean up the district and improve service delivery.
“Corruption is affecting service delivery in the district. We discovered cases of double remittances and the school head teachers would be told to withdraw that money and take it back to the district. This is too much corruption,” he said.
More corruption allegations
This publication has also learnt that the Anti-Corruption Unit officials are conducting further investigations into non-payment of completed projects, non-payment of procured items and failure to release funds to departments.
In a council meeting chaired by the district speaker, Mr Gilbert Omugit last month, a section of councilors asked Mr Mutekanga to resign due to several corruption allegations against him.
However, some people have criticised the State House Anti- Corruption officials of highhanded methods to arrest the suspect.
