The Executive Director of the Financial Intelligence Authority (FIA) Mr. Sydney Asubo has said his organisation is yet to get any report from the Inspectorate of Government (IG) regarding their findings into Justine Bagyenda’s wealth more than a year, after it started.
“Ask them! Because I am also still waiting for my copy of the report (if any),” Mr. Asubo, told this reporter.
“We requested them to give us a copy of their final report because we sent to them information. They are also supposed to give us feedback on the quality of the information we provide to them in all cases, so as to help us improve our own work where required,” he said via phone.
Asubo who is a former director of legal affairs and the chief anti-corruption prosecutor at the Inspectorate of Government said his organisation was “still waiting for feedback from IGG almost one year down the road!”
“Not even a progress report or preliminary feedback. Nothing,” he said.
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On February 20th 2018, a whistle-blower petitioned the IGG to investigate Ms Bagyenda, referring to different assets, and the billions of shillings she allegedly held in two bank accounts in Kampala.
After much public pressure, an investigation was started under the leadership of the Leadership Code Directorate in the office of the IGG.
In June, the IGG, Mrs Irene Mulyagonja, after being castigated by the President during the State of the Nation Address for failing on her job to fight corruption, is quoted by Daily Monitor, a local daily as saying the report would be out soon. The same article was relayed on the IGG’s official website: https://www.igg.go.ug/updates/media/bagyenda-investigations-almost-complete-says-igg/
In December 2018, Ms Twine Annet Kyakunda, the Director of Leadership Code, under whose docket the Bagyenda investigation falls, also told this newsite that the report had been concluded and handed over to the IGG.
“That report is now complete and has been handed over to the IGG herself. It is now in the hands of the IGG herself for handling,” she said at the time.
In another phone conversation with this news site on April 16th 2019 she further reconfirmed the same but said the report was not publicly available as per the law.
However, addressing the media on May 2nd 2019, at the Uganda Media Centre, the IGG contradicted her staff and said the report was not yet complete, but added that even when it is complete, unless there is a recommendation to prosecute Bagyenda, the report won’t be made publicly available.
Is the IGG frustating the Bagyenda investigation?
The delay of the much awaited report has caused public anxiety, even raising earlier fears that the IGG herself could be having specific interest in the case and is thus interfering in the release of the report.
The president, in his own words likened this to appointing of a “watchman (Nakalema) to watch the watchman (Mulyagonja).”
“I think she (IGG) was infiltrated, slowly by some groups,” said the president at the ongoing 9th Commonwealth Regional Conference for Heads of Anti-Corruption Agencies in Africa at Lake Victoria Serena, Kigo.
Mr. Museveni had earlier in a June 6th 2018, State of the Nation Address scolded the IGG for incompetence.
“What happened to the IGG? Why don’t the victims of corruption report those incidences of corruption to the IGG,” asked an angry Museveni.
“If it is not working, why should we keep it then? The IGG should reflect on this. Are her staff credible? Why does the public not trust that institution? We need answers,” he said.
Weeks later, he would appoint Lt. Col Edith Nakalema to head a Statehouse Anti-Corruption Unit. .