The State Minister for Microfinance, Haruna Kasolo has accused of reportedly being part of the group that is defrauding civil servants with fake loans on their bank accounts.
This was raised by Agago Woman MP, Franca Akello during yesterday’s plenary sitting.
She was responding to David Bahati, State Minister for Planning, who informed Parliament that Kasolo wasn’t available because he had flown out of the country, despite a directive by Speaker Rebecca Kadaga to have Kasolo to explain why microfinance institutions have been sending loans to accounts of civil servants and deduct their salary even when the workers never applied for the loans.
“I don’t want to believe Kasolo isn’t part of this fraud. He knew he was supposed to appear and answer this question. That ministry doesn’t have one minister for a matter to be delayed for more than half a year. The employees are losing their money every month. Their children are hungry simply because somebody is seated in the office defrauding; I am going to be forced to let my people do what they want to do,” Akello said.
In response, Bahati said the Ministry of Finance is simply being respectful towards Kadaga’s directive to have Kasolo answer the question in person and promised to return to Parliament with a statement tomorrow.
However Kadaga said, “If you have a statement come and make it. This kind of thing shouldn’t be happening. If he was going away you tell the speaker that my statement is here, you don’t take off.”
It should be recalled that last week, Speaker Kadaga issued a directive demanding Kasolo to explain why for long, he has failed to explain why microfinance institutions are pushing loans to bank accounts of civil servants resulting into having their salary stolen in the guise of paying the loans.
However despite raising the issue before Parliament on three occasions, Minister Kasolo has eluded the subject by failing to explain why these civil servants are duped and lose their money without explanation from government.
Kadaga demanded for Kasolo’s appearance within 30minutes to respond to the concerns raised only to realize the Minister hasn’t been in attendance for a long time, prompting the Speaker to order for Kasolo’s appearance next week without fail.
