By Nathan Eyagu
SOROTI- In a significant development, three Soroti district officials, namely acting district engineer Alex Oryetok, assistant engineer Simon Okello, and procurement officer Haggai Ewena, were apprehended yesterday evening by the State House Anti-Corruption Unit.
They were detained at Soroti Police Station following allegations of abuse of office related to a road project in Tubur Town Council, Soroti.The arrest order was issued by Fatuma Namukwaya, Deputy Director of the Anti-Corruption Unit at the Internal Security Organization (ISO), who represented State Minister for Economic Monitoring Beatrice Akello.
The trio is accused of reducing the length of a low-cost sealing road from 0.9km to 0.4km, as stipulated in the contract documents budgeted at shs 419 million.The road works, initiated by the district in February, came under scrutiny when a monitoring team visited the site weeks later to assess the progress. Bob Owiny, the Tubur district councilor in Soroti, voiced concerns about the mismanagement of taxpayer funds, asserting that the alleged reduction in road length would result in a loss of over 180 million UGX.
Furthermore, it was revealed that the engineers deviated from the initial plan of constructing a single surface road, opting instead for a premix design, which they claimed to be stronger. However, their explanations failed to satisfy Samuel Ssebikari, the senior legal officer of State House, who demanded further interrogation by state house detectives and subsequent handover to Soroti police.
Meanwhile, Simon Peter Edoru, the LC 5 of Soroti district, commended the work of the monitoring team and pledged full support.Today, the team will be in Soroti City to inspect various government projects, including the Soroti Fruit Factory.
