Police announced late Friday that they had detained the assistant finance minister of Uganda on suspicion of seizing metal roofing sheets destined for a relief program in the troubled Karamoja region of northeastern Uganda.
The arrest of Amos Lugoloobi is the second detention of a minister in as many weeks related to the larceny of roofing materials.
According to the police, Lugoloobi was detained in connection with “investigations into the alleged theft and diversion of iron sheets meant for the Karamoja region.” The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) gave approval for this arrest.
According to a police tweet, “criminal charges have been sanctioned against Lugoloobi” by the office of the DPP. “Therefore, he was apprehended and is currently being held in jail pending trial.”
In this East African country, high-ranking government officials are rarely arrested or punished for corruption.
Longtime opponents of President Yoweri Museveni have cited the paucity of prosecutions of high-ranking officials with ties to the president as evidence that his administration is unwilling or incapable of combating corruption.
Police have not disclosed when Lugoloobi will be brought before a magistrate to face charges.
Mary Goretti Kitutu, the minister for Karamoja affairs, was detained and charged with numerous offenses related to the larceny of iron sheets, including “loss of public property” and “conspiracy to defraud”
Kitutu was accused of stealing 14,500 sheets of roofing iron “for her own benefit and for the benefit of third parties.” She was released from detention on Friday after posting a bond and entering a not-guilty plea.
Pastoral herdsmen in Karamoja are subject to recurrent droughts and fatal livestock attacks by warriors armed with illegally acquired weapons transported across permeable borders.
The roofing materials were intended to be distributed to adolescents as part of a disarmament program carried out by security officers in the region to encourage them to cease engaging in illicit livestock raids and other criminal activities.
