The State House Anti-Corruption Unit has arraigned before the Ntungamo Chief Magistrate’s court six education officials attached to Ntungamo district for causing Financial Loss and Abuse of Office.
The accused are; Fred Bahati, District Education Officer, Gordon Nabaasa,Municipal Education Officer, Abias Nabasa Rushegyera Former Head Teacher of Ntungamo Primary School, Allen Komuhangi of Head Teacher, Ruhoko Primary School, Bernards Munuunura Head Teacher of Maato Primary School and Geoffrey Ntereire, Head Teacher of Kikoni SDA Primary School.
The State House Anti-corruption unit accused the head teachers of inflating the number of pupils in their schools to receive larger capitation grants well as the education officers were accused of failing to verify the submitted figures before forwarding them to the Ministry of Education and Sports for fund disbursement.
The state House Anti-Corruption Unit alleges that during the 2023/24 financial year, the Ministry of Education and Sports paid capitation grants for 124,817 pupils across 249 Universal Primary Education (UPE) schools in Ntungamo District. However, it was later established and confirmed that the actual number of pupils in the district is approximately 80,000. This resulted in a discrepancy of over 40,000 “ghost” pupils for whom the government was erroneously paying capitation grants, causing a financial loss of over one billion shillings due to the accused inflating the number of pupils.
Meanwhile other two teachers, Marsaile Tunanukye and MollyNkumiriza, will appear before the Ntungamo Chief Magistrates Court on charges of Conspiracy to Defeat Justice. The two are accused of interfering with an ongoing investigation into pupil enrollment at Nyakasi Primary School.
The officials appeared before His Worship, Gordon Muhimbise, the Chief Magistrate of Ntungamo on Tuesday evening and were remanded to the Ntungamo government prison until March 18 and 20, 2025, respectively.
Last year, Ntungamo district was embroiled in a capitation scandal that was exposed through an audit by the Special Infrastructure Monitoring Unit, established by Janet Museveni kataaha the Education Minister the Unit is led by Dr. Kenneth Ssemwogerere.
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