KAMPALA, UGANDA: The State Minister for Planning, Mr Amos Lugoloobi has been arrested shortly after returning part of the iron sheets to the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) stores in Namanve, Kampala on Friday evening.
Lugoloobi, the Member of Parliament for Ntenjeru North Constituency in Kayunga district is currently detained at Kira division police station in Wakiso as he awaits to be produced in court on Monday.
The minister in February this year admitted that he received up to 600 iron sheets and said he had used some of the G28 corrugated pre-painted iron sheets to roof a shed for his goats on his farm located in Misanga Village, Bbaale Sub-county in Kayunga District.
“I have realised that these iron sheets are evil and I no longer need them. Let me remove it so that I buy other iron sheets and re-roof my shed so that no one can lay claim that I owe them anything on my property,” Mr Lugoloobi said last month after ordering workers to pluck off the sheets.
Lugoloobi questioned why he was being pilloried and turned into a media fodder when many government executives also picked the roofing materials.
“How much are the 600 iron sheets I received? This is too little money because I have been donating iron sheets, which I have been buying using my personal money to schools, churches, mosques and other community projects,” he said then, adding; “I have removed them (the iron sheets) and now let me walk in peace because some people who don’t like me have misinterpreted this whole matter.”
Lugoloobi’s arrest falls on the same day when the pilot minister in the Karamoja Iron Sheets Scandal Dr Mary Goretti Kitutu was today granted bail after spending over 7 days on remand on two charges of corruption and one count of conspiracy to defraud the government in her role as minister.
President Museveni recently in a letter addressing the Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja called upon the line agencies to swing into action and arrest those culpable for the swindling of the relief items.
The President also directed the officials who took iron sheets to refund them in an equivalent monetary value, while those found guilty of using them for personal gain will face political action.
The diverted iron sheets were part of relief material that the government procured through the OPM for vulnerable populations in Karamoja, Teso, Northern Uganda, Luweero Triangle, and Bunyoro sub-regions.
The scandal caused significant public outcry across the country where government corruption is endemic.
A source that preferred to stay anonymous to this report told this website on Friday evening that a number of suspects including Ministers and MPs implicated in the saga will be arrested this weekend so as to be able to be arraigned in court on Monday.
“Everybody whose file was remitted back at DPP will be arrested including those that have purportedly returned the iron sheets,” said a source.
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