Former principal accountant in Ministry of Public Service Christopher Obey has refused to refund money which he allegedly stole belonging to pensioners. Obey appeared before the Parliamentary Accounts Committee (PAC) today chaired by Alice Alaso to defend himself over his alleged forgery of files purportedly belonging to former workers of EAC [pensioners] and paid shs165bn. The purported pensioners were 2434 in total and the committee discovered that they were all fictitious.
The committee put it to him that he was the very person who generated the ghost files for these fake pensioners with assistance from Peter Ssajjabbi who claimed to be the secretary general of the EAC pensioners numbering 2434. However he claimed that the files originated from pensions registry though he couldn’t name the person who gave them to him.
The committee asked him to save its time and refund the loot but he said he cannot refund money which he claims he never took. The committee is meeting him again tomorrow Thursday over the same shs165bn theft scandal of pensioners’ money.
In another twist, a renown City lawyer, John Matovu, says lawyer Bob Kasango may not pay the 7.8 billion shillings he promised to refund because he is bankrupt. This came after lawyer Kasango was forced by the committee to refund this money which was part of the 15.4 billion paid to an alleged ghost law firm.
Matovu told the committee chaired by Alice Alaso that lawyer Kasango is totally broke and there is nothing under his name. He told Members of Parliament that they should be careful because the bank statement tabled before committee by Kasango could be a forged one. Matovu told the committee that Kasango is a devil lawyer who conned him of 12 billion shillings which could have come to him from government under the agreement he had with him. He said that Kasango’s accounts had zero balance on the several times he checked and doubts that he will get the funds to pay back. Matovu said that he has been hunting Kasango through police and court summons since October last year and failed to trap him.
He pinned Kasango for using fake documents purported to be from Matovu’s lawyer firm and procured pension money irregularly. Matovu told the public accounts committee that the order Kasango used to get 7.8 billion shillings was illegal. He however, confirmed to the committee that about 6339 pensioners were paid their pension out of the 15.4 billion shillings.
