The former Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Cooperatives, Ms. Geraldine Ssali, and five others were on August 27, 2024, formally charged before the High Court Anti-Corruption Division.
The group appeared before Justice Jane Kajuga, where they pleaded not guilty to allegations of diverting funds intended for the Buyaka Growers Cooperative Society Limited.
Ssali was charged with abuse of office, causing government financial loss, and conspiring with three MPs, a lawyer, and a ministry official to defraud the government of over Shs3.6 billion meant to compensate war victims in their respective cooperative unions.
Ssali is jointly charged with MPs Michael Mawanda, Ignatius Wamakuyu, Paul Akamba, lawyer Julius Kirya Taitankonko, and Leonard Kavundira, a principal cooperative officer in the Trade Ministry. They face charges of diversion of public resources, conspiracy to defraud, money laundering, stealing by agent, and receiving stolen property.
According to the prosecution, during the financial years 2021/2022 and 2022/2023, while employed as a permanent secretary and accounting officer in the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Cooperatives, Ssali irregularly introduced Buyaka Growers Cooperative Society Ltd among the cooperatives to be compensated by the government for war losses, even though it had not been listed for a supplementary budget in August 2021.
Ssali is further accused of making irregular payments totaling Shs3,868,714,611 to Kirya and Company Advocates, a law firm belonging to co-suspect Julius Kirya Taitankonko, under the guise of compensating war victims of Buyaka Growers Cooperative. The prosecution alleges that Ssali knew these actions would cause the government financial loss as the payments contravened the Treasury Instructions of 2017.
The judge has set November 4, 2024, as the start date for the hearing of the case.
