Whereas it is no secret government has invested heavily in the fight against corruption, some senior government officials who are supposed to fight this evil continue to be the perpetrators of the same vice which has in return resulted into poor service delivery over the decades and seen some citizens castigate the government of President Yoweri Tubuhaburwa Kaguta Museveni.
The latest such official is the Executive Director of Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority (PPDA), Benson Turamye currently under investigation over corruption and fake academic documents.
According to a whistleblower, a key government organisation is investigating Turamye on allegations of possessing fake academic documents that he has been holding as he serves government over the years.
It has been discovered the PPDA boss while in primary and Secondary School never had the names he currently uses. “He must have acquired someone’s academic papers, which is illegal,” said one of his old school classmate.
Turamye was appointed Executive Director of Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority (PPDA) by the PPDA board in 2019 after serving in acting capacity for two years. He replaced Cornelia Sabiiti, who left the authority in 2017.
Extorting Chinese contractors
Apart from uttering fake academic papers, the PPDA boss Canon Benson Turamye is also under investigation for using his office to ask for bribes from government contractors and service providers.
According to documents seen by this website, it indicates that Turamye has been targeting Chinese Construction companies who give him huge sums of money in order to get government contracts especially to build roads.
It further revealed that one of the Chinese companies that have given him the PPDA cash is the China Railway Consortium. Most Chinese companies, it is said, have put Turamye on their payroll so as to win future contracts.
It is said a certain Chinese company built Turamye a house in order to win a government contract.
Turamye at one time conflicted two Chinese companies to the extent that one of the companies threatened to drag him to President Museveni for redress.
Among the victims of Turamye is the Seyani Brothers, a construction and real estate company. The company has been giving him kickbacks on every government project awarded.
Turamye’s corruption is one of the reasons why some companies do shoddy work so as to recover the money they give him as bribes. At the end of it all, it is the taxpayers that lose as service delivery is poor, said a top journalist in Kampala.
The latest survey report presented by the IGG Beti Kamya, says Uganda loses about Shs20 trillion annually to corruption, which is almost half the country’ current budget.
The money is lost mainly in procurement services.
Anti-corruption agencies such as World Governance Index, Transparency International, Afrobarometer and others list Uganda among the countries with high levels of corruption.
Uganda rank 42 of 180 countries in the latest Corruption Perception Index. It also ranks worst in East Africa.
Details about more PPDA corruption scandals under investigation in our next article
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