The Acting Rwampara District Health Officer (DHO), Mr Allan Twesigomwe Paton is in police custody following his arrest on allegations of forgery and abuse of office.

The Rwampara Resident District Commissioner (RDC), Ms Jane Asiimwe Muhindo told this publication on Tuesday that while serving in acting capacity, Mr Twesigomwe allegedly used his office to inflate figures and create ghost parishes in the district.

Mr Twesigomwe was arrested Monday evening and detained upon recommendations of the district security committee that sat earlier in the day.

The security committee agreed to open a general inquiry file, which led to his arrest.

“Following several reports about forgery and misappropriation of funds in the health department, the district security committee sitting on Monday recommended that the DHO be arrested to pave way for investigations,” said Ms Muhindo.

“The DHO has reportedly been responsible for forging signatures and inflating figures to steal from the government. For example, preliminary investigations indicate that he created ghost activities for village health teams in ghost parishes. Rwampara district has 29 parishes but he has been reporting and carrying out activities in 40 parishes and he has been doing this for three years,” Ms Muhindo added.

The Rwampara acting Chief Administrative Officer, Ms Rose Nalumansi reportedly wrote several letters to the responsible offices to investigate Mr Twesigomwe whose actions at one time led to protests by village health teams over non-payment.

He is also accused of not involving the district health team in the implementation of the health departmental activities, and mismanagement of primary health care funds and immunization programme in the district.

Mr Twesigomwe, who first locked himself in office on Monday to evade arrest was by press time detained at Nyeihanga police station and will be handed over to the Statehouse Anti-corruption unit for further questioning, according to Ms Muhindo.

This publication could not readily establish how much money was reportedly misappropriated by the detained Acting DHO.

Story Credit: Daily Monitor