Seven local government officials in Tororo District were placed under arrest at the weekend after Uganda’s Local Government Minister, Balaam Barugahara Ateenyi, ordered a crackdown on suspected corruption during an anti-graft campaign that has been sweeping through district administrations in recent months.
Those held include a district inspector of schools, a municipal physical planner, a community development officer, a procurement officer, a town council official and a municipal engineer, among others, with further arrests reportedly still being processed. The officials are accused of a range of offences, among them alleged fraud linked to the Parish Development Model, payroll fraud involving so-called ghost workers attached to health centres and schools, and the alleged misuse of funds meant for road and water projects.
Addressing the arrests, the minister said the crackdown was meant to protect government wealth-creation programmes from abuse. “We shall not allow a few corrupt individuals to sabotage the President’s wealth creation programmes. Those who steal PDM money, those who create ghost workers, you must be arrested,” he is said to have stated.
The exercise forms part of a wider campaign the minister has branded “Expose the Corrupt in Local Government,” under which scores of local government staff in various districts have in recent months been interdicted or arrested over allegations ranging from extortion to shoddy work on public infrastructure. Officials implicated in the Tororo cases have reportedly been directed to record statements with investigators, with case files expected to be forwarded to the Directorate of Public Prosecutions for further action.
The arrests are likely to renew debate over the pace and fairness of Uganda’s anti-corruption drives at the local government level, with critics previously questioning whether ministerial-led crackdowns of this nature deliver lasting reforms or risk overstepping into matters more properly handled by the courts and independent oversight bodies. Authorities have not indicated when formal charges against the Tororo suspects might be filed.