The Office of the Prime Minister top administrators arrested Thursday for inflating prices of relief food have been placed in separate police cells to prevent them from planning on how to elude justice.
The officials were netted yesterday by State House anti-corruption unit in an operation headed by Lt. Col. Edith Nakalema.
Nakalema in her statement said, Guwatudde and ilk had rejected food supplies at low cost and opted to inflate figures by shs 500 and ended up causing a loss of shs 4 billion.
The officials quoted Shs 3900 per kilogram of maize flour as opposed to the market price of Shs 2500-3000 and Shs 4500 per kilogram of beans as opposed to Shs 3000-4000 market price. Government ordered 9,030,000 kilograms of maize flour and 635,000 kilograms of beans.
The suppliers included Afro Kai Uganda Ltd, Global Trust Ltd, Mandela Millers and Aponye Uganda Ltd.
Nakalema handed them to Criminal Investigation Department (CID) for interrogation and were later detained.
We have learnt that Nakalema ordered that these officials be separated while in detention as they are likely to plan how to evade the law.
Responding to her advice, security officers separated the suspects.
Permanent Secretary Christine Guwatudde was held at Kireka SIU, accounting Officer Joe Wanjala slept at Jinja Police Station, Assistant commissioner procurement Fred Mutimba slept at Kira Road Station while commissioner disaster management (head COVID-19) Martin Owor was at CPS.
