Uganda arrests two over stolen child vaccine money
22 May 2007 11:54:51 GMT Source: Reuters
By Tim Cocks KAMPALA, May 22 (Reuters) - Ugandan police said on Tuesday they were hunting a former health minister wanted in the theft of $1.63 million donated for children's vaccines and had arrested his two deputies. The manhunt and arrests follow a report by a government watchdog recommending former health minister Jim Muhwezi be charged for theft, abuse of office and causing financial loss. The 200-page report also named his deputies Mike Mukula and Alex Kamugisha in two separate thefts which netted $1.63 million from a gift of $3.86 million to the Health Ministry from the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation. "Mukula and Kamugisha were arrested this morning. They're going to appear in court on charges relating to that report today," Okoth Ochola, deputy chief of the Criminal Investigations Department, told Reuters. He said police were trying to find Muhwezi: "He will be traced." A diplomat, who declined to be named, saw police vehicles surround Muhwezi's house in an upmarket Kampala suburb on Tuesday. There are persistent rumours he may have evaded the government's formidable security forces and fled to Britain. Muhwezi was unavailable for comment. A former close ally of President Yoweri Museveni, he has accused the president of manipulating investigations in a smear campaign. Under local and international pressure, Museveni fired Muhwezi and his deputies last year over a separate corruption scandal involving cash from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The Global Fund suspended five grants worth $367 million in 2005 over the case, but no one was prosecuted.
