{The Commander of the Uganda People\u2019s Defence Air force (UPDAF), Maj Gen Samuel Turyagyenda, has said his signature was forged by unscrupulous people in the recruitment and maintenance of a suspected \u201cghost\u201d Russian pilot.}<\/p>\n
The Commander of the Uganda People\u2019s Defence Air force (UPDAF), Maj Gen Samuel Turyagyenda, has said his signature was forged by unscrupulous people in the recruitment and maintenance of a suspected \u201cghost\u201d Russian pilot on the army\u2019s payroll for a period of 11 years.<\/p>\n
During the period between October 2005 and February this year, the army paid the \u201cghost\u201d pilot, a one Valeri Ketrisk, alias Keti Ketriski SK, $618,000 (approximately Shs2.7 billion) in monthly salaries and another $120,000 (approximately Shs402 million) in gratuities.<\/p>\n
Payments were only stopped after the Chief of Defence Forces (CDF), Gen Katumba Wamala, instituted an internal probe into alleged \u201cconsistent reports pertaining to gross mismanagement of resources in the Air force\u201d.<\/p>\n
The report
\nThe preliminary report of a team of investigators comprising Maj Martin Nsengiyunva from the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence, Ms Rose Nabakoza and Ms Grace Apio from the police\u2019s Crime Intelligence and Investigation Directorate (CIID) and Capt Apollo Ahimbise from the Special Investigations Bureau (SIB) of UPDAF, alleged that Maj Gen Turyagyenda, who took over as head of the Air force in May 2013, may have known about the \u201cghost\u201d contract since he was one of the high ranking officers at the time.<\/p>\n
The report named nine other people \u2013 two of them (Lt Komunda and Maj Zakama) since dead \u2013 as either having known about the ghost pilot contract or participated in creating it in one way or the other.<\/p>\n
According to the report, one of the nine, who was a paymaster at the Air force headquarters, received Shs3.5million from the \u201cghost\u201d pilot. The money is said to have been transferred into his account in Centenary Bank on November 7, 2005.<\/p>\n
Sources in the Ministry of Defence told Daily Monitor that under normal circumstances, recruitment of expatriate workers are initiated by user departments.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the case of the Air Force it is initiated by the Air Force Base Commander, and approved by the Chief of Staff of the Air Force who forwards them to the Chief of Air force, who approves and forwards the contract documents to the Ministry of Defence headquarters for clearance and formal approval of the contracts,\u201d the source said.<\/p>\n
The investigators\u2019 report, a copy of which Daily Monitor has seen, says Gen Turyagyenda, who was the Deputy Chief of the Force at the time the Ministry of Defence entered into the contract with the ghost pilot, had appended his signature and stamp to the contract documents.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn 27 January 2009, he recommended Valerie Ketrisk amongst other expatriates for amendment of contract and appended his signature. He is the sole person responsible for identifying, recruiting and recommending Russians for expertise and contracts at UPDAF,\u201d the report read in part.<\/p>\n
The investigators alleged that unless there was collusion on his part, Maj Gen Turyagenda should have detected the fraud given the crucial role that his office plays in the process of procuring expatriate workers.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaintaining the false employee for more than 10 years on the nominal roll and payable strength is an omission on his (Maj Gen Turyagyenda\u2019s) part,\u201d the report says in parts.<\/p>\n
Maj Gen Turyagyenda, however, denied involvement in the fraud. \u201cI was not involved in any way. My signature and stamp were forged,\u201d he told Daily Monitor on phone yesterday morning.<\/p>\n
Gen Turyagyenda said that he has been away from his duty station and only got to know about the fraud through the newspapers.
\nHe said he is arranging to meet the CDF, Gen Katumba, over the matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{The Commander of the Uganda People\u2019s Defence Air force (UPDAF), Maj Gen Samuel Turyagyenda, has said his signature was forged by unscrupulous people in the recruitment and maintenance of a suspected \u201cghost\u201d Russian pilot.} The Commander of the Uganda People\u2019s Defence Air force (UPDAF), Maj Gen Samuel Turyagyenda, has said his signature was forged by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[99],"byline":[2481],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-28259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-daily-monitor"],"bylines":[{"id":2481,"name":"DAILY MONITOR","slug":"daily-monitor","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2481,"name":"DAILY MONITOR","slug":"daily-monitor","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28259\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28259"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=28259"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=28259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}