By Our Reporter
NATIONAL
The Deputy Inspector General of Government has defended her decision to withdraw charges against the former Executive Director of Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS), Livingstone Ebiru.
Dr. Patricia Ochan Okiria who was responding to Parliament’s uproar over the withdrawal, defended the decision to withdraw the charges saying COSASE only provided proceedings of the Committee without accompanying this with evidence of the Board Members soliciting or even receiving the said bribe, which made it hard for IGG to sustain bribery charges against Ebiru in court.
Ochan, in a media interview on Monday, 30th October, 2023 said the Inspectorate of Government attempted to do investigations against Ebiru but that the investigations didn’t lead them anywhere.
“In law we don’t go to court with hearsay, we attempted to do investigations but it didn’t lead us anywhere, so we just found it wise that we withdraw that case against Ebiru. There was need for the IG to prove to court that someone asked for that bribe and cases of corruption take place between two parties the giver and taker of the bribe,” Ochan said.
This was in response to a strongly worded disapproval by Joel Ssenyonyi, Chairperson, COSASE who expressed shock at the decision by IGG to withdraw corruption charges Ebiru.
Ssenyonyi said that despite furnishing Government with overwhelming evidence of Ebiru confessing to paying a bribe of Shs100M to have his contract extended, the charges have now been withdrawn.
“During the COSASE inquiry into UNBS, we publicly showed these messages (WhatsApp messages) to the then ED David Ebiru, and he admitted that the messages were true and were exchanged between him and a board member. It is shocking that charges against him have now been withdrawn without a valid reason,” wrote Ssenyonyi in his X formerly Twitter handle.
The withdrawal of charges is contained in a letter dated 25th October 2023 signed by the Deputy Inspector General of Government, Dr. Patricia Achan Okiria.
The letter was addressed to the trial Chief Magistrate under case No: HTC-00-ACD-CSC-068/2023 under Inspectorate of Government No: HQT/CO/767/2023.
“TAKE NOTICE that the government of Uganda intends that the proceedings against, LIVINGSTONE EBIRU shall not continue, “reads the IGG instruction to the trial magistrate.
Ebiru has been facing charges of offering a Shs 100 million bribe or gratification to Charles Masekuura, the UNBS board chairperson between October and December 2022. The bribe was allegedly part of his efforts to retain his position as the UNBS executive director.
