Two parish chiefs are in the hands of Masindi district Police after they were arrested over alleged fraud.
The duo has been identified as Richard Bamuleke, of Nyabyeya parish in Budongo Sub County and Cate Kyarisiima, of Bikonzi parish in Bwijanga Sub County. They were arrested on the orders Kanaginagi Ateenyi, the secretary finance Masindi district during a revenue mobilization meeting at the district headquarters today.
The duo’s arrest followed findings of a field monitoring exercise led by Finance committee chairperson Salama Kugonza and District Revenue Officer Moses Kalyegira in the lower local governments. During the exercise, it was established that the Parish Chiefs take long to remit the revenue leading to misuse of funds and under-declaration.
According to Kugonza, they discovered that Richard Bamuleke, the Nyabyeya Parish Chief had never remitted any money to the sub-accountant since June 2017, a delay which resulted into mismanagement of 2,700,000 Shillings which had been collected in revenues.
He also indicated that the parish chief of Bikonzi parish in Bwijanga sub-county, Cate Kyarisiima, collected 3,300,000 Shillings from Casino machines but remitted on 990,000 Shillings. Kyarisima was also found with duplicate receipts.
Cosmas Byaruhanga, the Masindi district Chairperson says that the monitoring exercise was compelled by low revenue collection rates in the district and the failure by lower local councils to meet the targets.
He adds that such acts have caused a lot of problems to the district and crippled service delivery.