Ruhemba Kweyamba, the Chief Administrative Officer Masaka is in trouble for alleged forgery and embezzlement of councilor’s allowances.
The district councilors on Tuesday rejected a 100-million-shilling supplementary budget presented by Kweyamba for approval to clear debts.
According to the budget breakdown, Shillings 49 million is meant for clearing water bills, while 18 million shillings is for paying the contractor who worked on Lubabu road. The budget also reflects 19 million shillings to clear bills at Hotel Brovad and 6 million shillings for fuel amongst others.
Kweyamba explained that they had raised the money for the supplementary budget from the sale of old district vehicles to scrap-dealers and deductions from the allowances of councilors and district executive.
Councilors, however, rejected the supplementary budget citing forgery and breach of the local government act. Ddungu Tabula, Masaka district Finance Secretary and Joseph Kalungi, the LC5 Chairman accused the CAO of presenting an inflated budget.
He explained that during their executive meeting convened on April 12, 2012, the councilors approved 13 million shillings to pay Lubabu but Kweyamba inflated the figure to 18 million and shillings. The CAO also reportedly inflated the water bills from 42 million 49 million shillings.
Tabula suspects that Kweyamba could have created ghost debtors with an intention of embezzling public funds. Phoebe Kyewalyanga, the Masaka District Council speaker says in addition to forgery and inflation of the supplementary budget figures, Kweyamba illegally deducted 60 percent from the councilors’ allowances.
Kyewalyanga says ordinary councilors are entitled to 300,000 shillings every council sitting while various secretaries are supposed to get 450,000 shillings every month. She, however, says that since November last year, Kweyamba has been paying the councilors only 100,000 shillings. Kyewalyanga says that they have given the CAO up to the end of this month to refund their money because he deducted it without authorization from the council.
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Patrick Zziwa, the councilor representing Nyendo-Ssenyange division claims that Kweyamba never consults the council which is mandated by the local government act to approve all district expenditures.
But Kweyamba told URN on Wednesday that the councilors are ignorant of the law. He, however, declined to explain why he deducted the councilor’s allowances and altered the supplementary budget figures saying he will offer an explanation another day.
