{{After three years, the Prosecutor General Martin Ngoga has finally broken the silence and revealed that his office has taken to court cases for prosecution on charges of embezzlement of public funds, illegal public procurements, forgery of documents that were exposed in the Auditor General\u2019s annual report2007.}}<\/p>\n
Addressing a press conference Wednesday at his office in Kimihurura, Ngoga revealed that about 223 people are involved in the charges but refused to disclose identities of officials accused and the institutions they represented.<\/p>\n
When Journalists insisted on revelation of the implicated public officials, the prosecutor general said: \u201cWe are not authorized to publicise their identities before the Prime Minister-the head of government business has gone through the report\u201d Ngoga said amidst murmurs from the scribes.<\/p>\n
After the explanations, Ngoga said the investigations established that public officials embezzled Frw 3.2 billion while other financial irregularities including; evasion of taxes and public procurement, fines have been imposed and funds have been recovered.<\/p>\n
He further clarified that not all the cases were criminal by nature and that some accountability documents that were not available during the external audit were later acquired by the institutions concerned and exonerated.<\/p>\n
The prosecutor general pointed out that of the 112, twenty six of them implicating 66 public officials amounting to Frw 125.3million were investigated and taken to court while over Frw 40.7 million was recovered and returned to government coffers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was either through fines on procurement irregularities or the implicated officials returned the funds in good faith\u201d, Ngoga stressed but hastened to explain that such were cases that are not above Frw 5million related to breach of tendering procedures whereby those involved have a fine to pay as the law stipulates.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe decided to settle these cases internally where those involved pay the taxes for instance including the fines.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf this happens to the same official twice irrespective of the amount they are taken to court or relieved from their duties,\u201d Ngoga emphasized.<\/p>\n
As such, the government charged Frw 22.8 million worth of fines, and recovered Frw17.9 million from officials who voluntarily returned funds.<\/p>\n
Out of a total of 112 cases, only 26 have been forwarded to courts, 13 were fined and resolved out of court, 4 were sent to military courts while 32 are still under investigations. It was further revealed that a whooping 37 cases lacked credible evidence for prosecution.<\/p>\n
The allegations are the result of a year long investigation and those being charged include directors of national institutions, university heads and national researchers.<\/p>\n
What appeared to be a big challenge on the anti-corruption crusade, however, is that besides the huge backlog cases for the 2007 annual report, the proceeding three year annual reports have exposed a whooping over Frw 25 billion unaccounted for and culprits are yet to be forwarded to judiciary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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