Safia Nalule Juuko, who is the Chairperson Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) has landed in fresh trouble after President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni ordering an investigation into allegations that she is plotting together with other people to reinstate interdicted Lawrence Mpitsi Pac Mujuni, as Secretary of the Commission.
It should be noted that Mpitsi was together with others in 2020 convicted on 13 counts of corruption by the Anti-corruption Court and fined over Shs 35M.
His contract later expired in January 2020 but now he is frantically doing everything possible with Nalule to ensure that he returns to the Commission on a new contract.
We’ve further learnt that interviews for the job kick-started today September 06, 2022 and Mpitsi was among those who applied for the job.
It should also be noted that according to the Constitution, Section 46 of the Anti-corruption Act of 2019 makes it explicitly clear that a person convicted of an offense shall not hold public office for a period of 10 years.
What prompted President Museveni’s investigation according to our sources, is intelligence leaking to State House to the effect that Mpisi, who was convicted of corruption on his own plea of guilt, is now applying to fill the position of Secretary of the Commission, which he lost because of his corrupt tendencies.
The matter came to light after a Whistleblower petitioned President Museveni and briefed him with intelligence indicating that Nalule convinced by her Vice Chairperson Cox Ojuko to let convicted Mpisi bounce back at the Commission as Secretary.
Although it is not yet clear whether EOC sent out advertisements seeking candidates to fill the position as required by law, we have established that there are three people who have since applied, who include; Mukwaya Shaft, Mpitsi Lawrence, and Mujuni Bernard.
The Whistleblower said in the petition that the Chairperson even went ahead to write to the Attorney General seeking legal advice about the matter of hiring Mpitsi again, even when she knew that the Anti-corruption Act of 2019, under section 46 provides that a person who is convicted of an offense under section 2-25 shall be disqualified from holding a public office for a period of 10 years.
The sources reveal that it is this intelligence, which was leaked by a Whistleblower, that Museveni based on to sanction the investigation into Nalule’s operations at the Commission, which has been dogged by corruption scandals for a long time.
This is because according to our sources, as the champion of the war against corruption, Museveni’s main objective is to weed out all the ‘Kawukumi’ from the Commission that is mandated to ensure that all Ugandans equally benefit from government opportunities but is instead doing the contrary.
As a result of this, we have established that the President has dispatched a team of spies to audit and scrutinize EOC recruitment processes, budgets, expenditures, and allegations of abuse of office.
The Sources reveal that Museveni has also issued directives to the Inspector General of Government (IGG) and the State House Anti-Corruption Taskforce to investigate the current recruitment process and management of the equal opportunities commission, with intent to expose the rot therein.
Besides the IGG and the State House Anti-Corruption Taskforce, our Sources reveal that Museveni also tasked the Director General of the Internal Security Organisation (ISO) Col. Charles Oluka, to join investigation team in a bid to end the alleged nonending corruption scandals at the Commission.
The Probe Team is also tasked with doing background checks on all the Commission staff members and establish who exactly does what.
This website has since see a copy of a petition letter, stamped and received by the Ministry of Gender, Labor, and Social Development, exposing the stinking rot the Commission led by Nalule, who is battling corruption allegations at the Anti-Corruption Court together with several of her staff members.
However, efforts to secure a comment from the Presidential Deputy Press Secretary Kirunda Frank about the matter were still futile by press time, although our State House sources confirmed to us that he wasn’t yet privy to the Presidential Directive to probe corruption at EOC since it is a national interest matter.
It should be noted that the EOC has a centre of corruption probes for a long time and in 2019 the former Chairperson Sylvia Ntambi was charged with several offenses together with nine of her staff members.
The charge sheet stated that the officials faced 25 corruption-related cases ranging from causing financial loss, conspiracy to defraud, embezzlement, corruption, abuse of office.
The EOC staff who were accused of corruption tendencies together with Ntambi were; Agnes Enid Kamahoro, the senior personal secretary, Moses Mugabe, a senior monitoring and evaluation officer, Mujuni Mpitsi, secretary, Harriet Byangire, a senior accountant, Ronnie Kwesiga, acting accounts assistant, Evans Jjemba, principal compliance officer, Manasseh Kwihangana, a senior compliance officer.
Others are Sarah Nassanga, an office attendant and Nicholas Sunday Olwor, an undersecretary.
According to the Chief Government Prosecutor, Ntambi’s negligence led to gross mismanagement of the Commission’s funds between July 2018 and April 2019.
