IGG Places Police Director Under Investigation.
IGG has launched an investigation into police director Godfrey Bangirana who quoted UGX 10BN the repair of a chopper, yet a brand new chopper from the same manufacturer cost btn UGX 3.3BN.
Bangirana is among the officers who were recommended for dismissal from the force by Justice Julia Sebutinde commission of inquiry because of corruption in police.
In other words, Police Force repaired 1 chopper at UGX 10BN instead of buying 2 New choppers because of this fraudster.
The Inspectorate of Government has launched an investigation into Godfrey Bangirana, the police director of Engineering and Logistics, accused of superintending several fraudulent procurements.
The assistant inspector general of police was last week questioned by officers from the IGG’s office, acting on a whistleblower’s petition. The whistleblower accuses the police chief of inflating costs for the repair of a police chopper that had been grounded for 15 years.
The seven-seater Bell 206B helicopter, which was grounded in 2002 flew again on May 31 after two years of refurbishment by Yamasec Ltd, an Israeli security systems company operating in East Africa.
According to the whistleblower, Bangirana quoted an exorbitant price of Shs 10bn for the chopper’s repair. On the day of its launch before cameras by the deputy Inspector General of Police (D/IGP) Brig Muzeyi Sabiiti at Kajjansi airstrip, the chopper initially failed to take off until engineers fixed a few things.
The amount spent on refurbishing this 33-year-old chopper could have been used to buy a new chopper.
According a website www.aircraftcompare.com, choppers from the same American manufacturer cost between US$900,000 (Shs 3.3bn) and $1.2m (Shs 4.4bn) depending on specifications – which implies that the Uganda Police Force could have procured at least two more choppers with the same amount spent on repairing the Kajjansi chopper.
Former IGP Gen Kale Kayihura wanted to sell it off as scrap but was convinced to instead repair it. The whistleblower also questions the Shs 100bn bill for the construction of Nateete police station.
The four-storey structure stands commandingly in the swampy Nateete suburb of Kampala; a few metres from the razed old police station torched by rioters in 2009 at the peak of protests against government’s refusal to let the Kabaka of Buganda Ronald Muwenda Mutebi II to travel to Bugerere (Kayunga district).
According to the whistleblower, the face value of the new Nateete police structure does not exceed Shs 20bn. Bangirana is also accused of flouting procurement processes – awarding contracts to companies in which he has personal interest.
As head of Engineering and Logistics, Bangirana is charged with handling all procurements in the police.
“He has superintended over gross procurement flaws that have not only affected the police force but also the various suppliers who have various contracts with the force,” the whistleblower’s letter dated August 25 to the IGG partly reads.
As a consequence, the whistleblower wrote, the money police owes to various suppliers has accumulated to over Shs 125bn since 2015.
“He endorses payments for only friendly companies or individuals. He is the man behind the fuel scam where he paid billions of shillings to petrol companies and had his proxies fetch police fuel but also sometimes going through back doors to pick physical cash from the fuel stations,” the whistleblower wrote.
POLICE FUEL
The whistleblower also asked the IGG to interest herself in knowing how Bangirana gave out police fuel to non-police officers, causing the force to lose billions of shillings in facilitating activities of private individuals.
Among the recipients of the fuel that the whistleblower named is President Museveni’s younger brother Gen Caleb Akandwanaho (Salim Saleh). The whistleblower further alleges that Gen Saleh’s associates get preferential treatment compared to other suppliers that do business with police.
Bangirana is among the officers that were recommended for dismissal by the 1999 Justice Julia Sebutinde commission of inquiry into corruption in police.
The whistleblower now wants the IGG to investigate why the recommendations of the report were never respected but instead Bangirana got rapidly promoted to become an Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIGP).
“You may also need to take a keen interest in the wealth accumulated by Mr Bangirana. Has he declared it? Can he account for such wealth?” the whistleblower wrote.
Munira Ali, the spokesperson of the Inspectoracte of Government told The Observer on Monday that the charges had been consolidated into one case of mismanagement.
“All the allegations point to one thing, mismanagement. That is why we have decided to crown it as that,” Munira said.
Police spokesman Emilian Kayima said police heard about Bangirana’s investigation through the media.
“It is only the office [IGG] responsible for that investigation that knows the details,” Kayima said.