The missing suspect is Sam Emorut Erongot, the former Commissioner in charge of Policy and Planning in the Local Government Ministry, who went missing moments after the court of Appeal upheld his conviction and 13-year jail term for his role in the scam.
A row has erupted between the
police and the Judiciary over liability for the disappearance of one of the suspects
convicted for messing the purchase of bicycles meant for local council and
Parish Chairpersons across the country.
The missing suspect is Sam Emorut
Erongot, the former Commissioner in charge of Policy and Planning in the Local Government Ministry, who went missing moments after the court of Appeal upheld his conviction and 13-year jail term for his role in the scam.
Erongot and his co-accused, John
Muhanguzi Kashaka, Henry Bamutura, Adam Aluma, Robert Mwebaze and Timothy
Musherure had appealed against their conviction by the anti-corruption court
five years ago, for causing a financial loss of 4.2 billion Shillings to the government
after misappropriated money meant for the LC bicycles.
The money was meant to purchase
70,000 bicycles for Local Council and Parish Chairpersons ahead of 2011 general
elections. But Erongot and the
other co-accused persons reportedly contracted a sham company, Ammam Industrial
Tools and Equipment Limited -AITEL to purchase the bicycles in India.
In a conviction judgement past
five years ago, Justice Catherine Bamugemereire highlighted that the company
which was allegedly awarded the contract to supply the bicycles was nonexistent.
The judge referred to the directors of AITEL as rogues and conmen, noting that
their supposed firm was formed purely to facilitate the fraud.
As a result, Erongot was jailed
for 13-years, Kashaka, the former Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Local
Government and Henry Bamutura, the former Principal Accountant were hailed for
10 years.However, the convicts challenged the sentences
describing them as harsh and not valid in law.
The Court of Appeal upheld the
sentences early this week, in a Judgment by Justices Christopher Madrama, Hellen
Obura and Elizabeth Musoke, sending the three officials to Luzira Prison to
start serving the punishment.
But by the time the Court
Registrar Dr Agnes Nkonge finished reading three Judgements, Erongot, who had
spent five years out on bail was missing, a glitch which Solomon Muyita, the
spokesperson of the Judiciary blames on the police.
Muyita notes that the courts
cannot convene without prison services or police and in the event that the
suspect has been out on bail, it’s supposed to be the role of the police to ensure
that he is kept in sight, until he is placed in a holding cell.
//Cue in; “In the event…
Cue out…court to prison.”//
Luganda //Cue in; “Abaserikare
balina okubawo…
Cue out… naye nadda ekka”.//
However, the Spokesperson of the
Criminal Investigations Department of Police, Assistant Superintendent of
Police Charles Twine says that police cannot be blamed for Erongot’s disappearance.
Twine says that they have three
categories of police officers who are supposed to be in court and they include
those who offer physical security to the general public while at court,
Investigators following up the progress of their cases and the Court Orderly
Police officers, who are supposed to receive new files of cases or new suspects
from the investigators and hand them over to prisons.
In the case of Erongot, who was
out on bail for five years, Twine says that there is no way they would have
known him without the help of the court officials who should have put suspects in
the dock rather than delivering the judgement in chambers.
Twine advises the judiciary to issue
a warrant of arrest against Erongot.
