Kabale Natural Resources Officer Removed from GCF Project Following Corruption Allegations.
The Kabale District Natural Resources Officer, Henry Tumwesigye, has been removed from his role of managing the Green Climate Fund wetlands restoration project, which is under scrutiny due to corruption allegations against senior district officials.
The new Kabale Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), Ronald Mutegeki, yesterday told our reporter that the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Local Government, Ben Kumumanya, last week ordered the reinstatement of Kabale District Environment Officer, Evas Asiimwe as the project manager.
Mutegeki did not disclose the reasons for Tumwesigye’s removal from managing the project or why Evas had been removed from the role in the first place. However, this decision coincides with the reinstatement of the District Water Officer Patience Aharinta and the District Senior Procurement Officer Mercy Atuhaire, after an internal investigation revealed that their interdictions by the former CAO John Asiimwe, were irregular. Aharinta and Atuhaire claimed their interdictions were motivated by their refusal to comply with alleged demands from CAO Asiimwe and the District Chairman Nelson Nshangabasheija, to create fictitious water projects and flout procurement procedures to misappropriate millions of Shillings in public funds.
Asiimwe refuted the allegations, while Nshangabasheija has repeatedly declined to respond to them. The Ministry of Water and Environment also suspended the procurement process for livelihood support items worth 1.481 billion Shillings intended for 905 people voluntarily leaving wetlands, after detecting potential fraud in the procurement process.
