Minister halts monitoring trips to address corruption scandals

The Minister of State for Economic Monitoring in the Office of the President, Beatrice Akello, has cancelled her trips to other West Nile districts to address unprecedented corruption scandals in the city.

Akello who doubles as Woman Member of Parliament for Agago district was supposed to be in Arua City and Arua district on Monday and Tuesday respectively but said she would not leave the city until she finds a solution to the grand scandals in the city.

Top among the incessant scandals is the Arua Hill stadium construction which has remained incomplete and lacks valid bidding documents between the owner and city authorities despite lying on the city land.

Another scandal involves a prime city land that was earmarked for a mega UN-funded project but a senior city official allegedly singlehandedly gave it to a private developer against a council regulation.

“It is only here in Arua City where civil servants commit crimes with impunity, officials of the division collect revenue with forged receipts and use the money and nothing happens. It is in Arua where government land is allocated to developers without clear terms and conditions and developers solicit money from business people without clear terms and many people have lost money”, Ms Akello stated.

Last week, the Minister launched a supervision and monitoring exercise of government programmes in the northern part of the country with a view of strengthening accountability in both central and local government projects/programmes as a way of improving service delivery.

Written by Mike Sebalu