The Inspectorate of Government has vehemently denied media reports indicating that the Inspectorate is investigating Fred Bamwesigye (pictured), the Ag Director General for Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA).
Speaking to the press Friday afternoon at her IPS offices, the Ag IGG, Mariam F Wangadya said that the matter of alleged inauthentic academic qualifications of Bamwesigye was first reported to the IG in 2017 and the same was comprehensively investigated and found to be untrue.
“Even as we investigated, the same group of whistle blowers kept petitioning the Inspectorate. They actually did that four times and we wondered why the content of the document would be the same every time they petitioned. They only kept changing the date, print afresh and bring. Eventually, the matter was closed after failing to find any merit in the whistle blower’s claims,” Wangadya explained.
She added: “The danger with such matters is that somebody accesses our registry and gets their matter filed. The moment they get the same signed and stamped to indicate it has been received, they run to the media to malice those they have complained against. And it’s even more complicated on our side once the whistle blower isn’t disclosed. You commence the investigations and get stuck mid-way because the whistle blower is nowhere to corroborate their claims to facilitate progress of the investigations.”
She added that the conduct of the whistle blower (repeatedly filing the same complaint well knowing the same is already being inquired into) indicated to them this was a malicious fight and someone was out to use the Inspectorate to propagate personal vendetta against Bamwesigye.
“In the end, we completed the investigations and found nothing and closed the matter. But I subsequently learnt that the same had been filed in court which equally inquired into it and even delivered a judgment corroborating our findings and exonerated Bamwesigye,” Wangadya said.
The Ag IGG revealed that besides the fact that the Inspectorate already inquired into the matter and had the same closed, there are other reasons why this newly filed petition isn’t something they can waste their already constrained time, financial and personnel resources to inquire into.
“The new petition contains the very same allegations that were asserted in 2017. They apparently only changed the date, got a fresh piece of paper to print it on and bring it back filing it afresh. We are certain that this same matter was heard and decided upon by Court and once that happens, we legally become constrained as the IG not to inquire into it again under Section 19 of the IG Act. We legally don’t have jurisdiction to investigate that matter again once it has been concluded by Court,” she explained adding “that is why we decided to terminate this latest petition on arrival simply because it’s the same and merely being filed to waste our time.”
Wangadya also implored the public to realize that, much as whistle blowing is very critical to their work as an organization, the IG is a serious institution and treat it with the respect it deserves. “We are a serious institution created by the Constitution with a clear mandate to investigate corruption and mal-administration. We wouldn’t encourage anyone out there to try and conscript this very serious institution into personal proxy wars. Why keep filing the same thing which the Inspectorate has already investigated and found that it absolutely has no merit whatsoever? My conclusion now is that this must be a malicious fight somewhere and those involved in it are just trying to conscript the IG into it. We will resist any attempts by malicious people to hijack this institution into proxy wars.”
The Ag IGG added: “As the one heading this institution, I’m not ordering any fresh investigations into this matter because that would be duplication of work. It simply doesn’t make sense re-investigating matters that have been concluded yet we have so much on our plate. We want to expend our resources on big things like Emyoga, NUSAF and others. We are very busy with the leaders’ declarations of wealth, assets & liabilities. The extension we had given is expiring at midnight today. We have verifications too which is a lot of work and yet we must generate business for the Leadership Code Tribunal in case of non-compliance.”
The journalists had come to inquire about what the Inspectorate intends to do to non-compliant holders of public office who will not have filed their declarations by midnight and one of them asked her about the UCAA saga. And that is how Wangadya ended up giving the above detailed response/explanation about those purportedly trying to use the Inspectorate to keep tormenting Fred Bamwesigye who currently heads UCAA amidst the ongoing recruitment process aimed at identifying the best person for the position of Director General. Bamwesigye, a long-serving manager at UCAA, is among those who have applied for the DG position, a thing that naturally causes envious rivals to target and go after him using institutions like the Inspectorate of Government.
