Uganda’s PM denies any knowledge of Irish aid fraud

Uganda’s prime minister has insisted he is not the person who allegedly misappropriated millions of euro in Irish Aid funding — saying lower level officials are responsible for donated money.

Speaking on RTÉ Radio’s This Week programme yesterday, Patrick Amama Mbabazi said “no money was ever paid to me” and that he “never handled money”.

Instead, the senior Ugandan politician — whose country has caused outrage after €12m-worth of aid from Ireland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark went missing — said unnamed lower ranking staff were in charge of keeping track of the funds.

Despite Ugandan newspaper reports alleging these unnamed officials perpetrated the fraud from a basement in Mr Mbabazi’s office building, the prime minister said he never suspected them.

And in a further attempt to distance himself from the scandal, he said the entire situation would not have been revealed without an investigation ordered by his office.

“I didn’t even know,” he said. “No money was ever paid to me and I never handled money. As prime minister I never handle money of government. Never.

“My involvement as prime minister is obviously limited to policy. The management of public funds according to our constitution is in the hands of our public officials.

“Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have known. The accounting officer reports to the treasury and the auditor general reports to parliament, so most times when we hear queries we hear them from the auditor general.”

He said his office and the Ugandan auditor general are investigating the alleged fraud.

He said some of the money which was improperly taken from the Crisis Management and Recovery Account was still used for development purposes — as intended — and that he would give details of this to the Irish ambassador when they next met.

The interview came after Eamon Gilmore, the Tánaiste and foreign affairs minister, suspended all Irish Aid funding to the African nation on Friday. He has put €16m worth of aid on hold until the Kampala government can explain what went wrong.

Uganda is one of the biggest recipients of Irish financial help, which focuses on development aid via NGOs and direct transfers from the Irish Aid Government organisation.