The National Resistance Movement (NRM) Secretary General, Justine Kasule Lumumba, has landed in hot soup after her name allegedly appeared repeatedly in an ongoing investigations into financial misappropriation at the party Secretariat.
Our sources who are privy to the investigations indicate that that Lumumba is implicated in a number of corruption scandals that involve billions of shillings of NRM party money and a few days back when she was put to account the same, she reportedly feigned an infection and has since gone into quarantine, so as to avoid appearing before the NRM Public Accounts Committee.
Credible sources have since revealed that whereas Lumumba is said to be renting the presidential suite at Hotel Africana where she is reportedly in self-isolation, NRM officials are piling pressure on her for failing to fund their operations, while others are demanding accountability for the Party’s funds that have been going through her office ever since President Yoweri Museveni kicked off her campaigns.
As a result of this disgruntlement, NRM delegates are complaining that their emoluments are being deducted for unknown reasons and without explanations, and because of that, the Party’s chief returning officer, Dr Tanga Odoi has no kind words for Lumumba.
Dr. Odoi says that his office on Plot 13 Kyadondo Road in Nakasero is about to be evicted for nonpayment of rent for the past three years, yet documents at the office indicate that the rent should be cleared without any outstanding balance and that the same was disbursed in the past financial year.
The bubble burst last week after the Speaker of Parliament Hon. Rebecca Kadaga launched an onslaught on SG Lumumba, who she accused of allegedly embezzling of money meant for youth, among other funds.
Kadaga opened a can of worms when recently she revealed that youth who attended President Museveni’s campaign in Busoga reportedly received Shs150,000 in transport refund, yet the President had been billed Shs250,000 per head attending his meetings.
Before that, delegates meeting Museveni in past engagements since he began his scientific campaigns had also apparently complained that Lumumba and her team didn’t give them full pay.
The queries came amidst reports that Lumumba had bee given Shs50 billion to facilitate scientific campaigns but by the time she went into COVID-19 isolation she had run short on cash.
We have since established that as a result of Lumumba’s shortcoming, President Museveni has since rejected the person she had fronted as her substitute during the time she is in quarantine.
According to insiders, although Lumumba had seconded someone to fill in her docket until the time she completes her quarantine, the President has since rejected her choice and appointed the NRM deputy SG Richard Todwong, whom she has always reportedly sidelined, as the Acting Secretary General.
This is because, credible NRM insiders reveal, Museveni nowadays has more trust in Todwong, a devout and time-tested party cadre more than anyone Lumumba, whose name has since been tainted, can front.
