Kampala, Uganda: At least 20 officials from the Ministry of Education and Sports are under intense investigation by the Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) over the alleged theft and diversion of Shs19 billion meant for government activities during the 2022/2023 and 2023/2024 financial years.
The CID’s Deputy Director for Economic Fraud and Anti-Corruption, Mr. Mark Paul Odong, confirmed to this publication that the officials, mainly from the Finance and Human Resource departments, have been summoned to CID headquarters in Kibuli to record statements in connection with allegations of embezzlement, diversion of public funds, causing financial loss, and corruption.
Since Monday, Odong says, at least eight officials have been interrogated. These include the principal assistant secretary for finance and administration, human resource officer, senior human resource officer, and the gender technical advisor.
Mr Odong emphasized that investigators from CID are focusing on funds allegedly received on personal accounts or withdrawn directly from the ministry’s cash office for questionable activities.
“The Directorate is investigating allegations of diversion of public funds, embezzlement, causing financial loss, and corruption involving officials in the Ministry of Education and Sports during the financial years 2022/2023 and 2023/2024,” Mr. Odong said in a letter to the ministry’s Permanent Secretary.
Officials questioned yesterday included the senior statistician, the administrator of the Uganda Secondary Education Expansion Project (USEEP), and two other human resource officers.
Four more officials were further questioned today (Wednesday), among them senior assistant secretaries from Finance and Administration, the Head of Secondary Education, and the Project Coordinator for Energy for Rural Transformation.
Tomorrow (Thursday)’s round will involve officials from Teacher Education, Training and Development, Secondary Science and Mathematics Teachers (SESEMAT), and others handling pre-primary and primary education budgets.
Mr. Odong revealed that some officials would be subjected to a second round of questioning next week as police widen the net. Sources at CID say this is only a preliminary stage as investigators gather evidence before determining individual liability.
Police spokesperson Kituuma Rusoke declined to confirm the ongoing investigation, saying he had not been briefed, so was Ministry of Education spokesperson Denis Mugimba, who said he was unaware of the summons.
“I’m hearing this from you. I haven’t been informed of any such development. When CID intends to summon any official, they usually write to the Permanent Secretary, who has not briefed me about this,” Dr. Mugimba said.
Not the First Time
This is not the first time the Ministry of Education has been linked to corruption scandals. In 2012, CID probed suspected mismanagement of Shs300 billion under the World Bank-funded Universal Post-Primary Education and Training (UPPET) programme, but findings were never made public.
Just recently, in May 2025, a Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority (PPDA) report uncovered suspected forgery involving 18 companies, some of which were subsequently blacklisted from government dealings for up to five years.
Following the 2012 Office of the Prime Minister corruption scandal, government directives were issued prohibiting the transfer of public funds to personal accounts to prevent such embezzlement, yet the practice appears to have persisted.
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