By Stanley Ebele
Police in Kotido district are holding two officials and two SACCO executives on allegations of mismanaging the Emyooga funds.
The four who were arrested on Friday include; Daniel Achila Lowot, the Kotido Municipal Commercial Officer, Tadeo Muria, the former Kotido District Commercial Officer, Hassan Teko, the secretary Jie County Performing Artists and Alice Nakiru, the treasurer Jie County Performing Artists.
Their arrest comes just days after the Kotido Resident District Commissioner, Charles Ichogor, commissioned a General Enquiry File at Kotido Central Police Station on Emyooga funds sent to the District.
The enquiry was occasioned following an audit into the SACCOS and plans by Micro Finance Support Centre to give additional 20 million shillings to each of the associations to enable more member’s access the funds.
Peter Abrahams Lokwi, the Kotido Assistant Resident District Commissioner, told Etoil A Karamoja, that preliminary investigations indicate that much of the Emyooga funds were never disbursed to the intended beneficiaries by the affected officials and there is nothing to show that the project was used for its purpose.
Lokwi, noted that during the audit, the leaders of the SACCOs and the association executives failed to produce a list of the beneficiaries raising questions as to whether they actually disbursed the money or not. He also noted that there are reports that wrong people received the support.
According to Lokwi, in 2019, Kotido District received 1.1 Billion shillings for 32 SACCOS but an audit shows that much of it was seemingly shared amongst the SACCO Executives and Association leaders sidelining the group members.
The Presidential Initiative on Wealth and Job Creation (Emyooga) was launched in august 2019, as part of broad government strategy targeting to transform 68% of homesteads from subsistence to market oriented production with the overall objective of promoting job creation and improving household incomes.
