NSSF: Byarugaba, financial officer’s phones handed over to police over Shs 1.8bn  

The mobile phones of the former National Social Security Fund (NSSF) managing director Richard Byarugaba and his chief financial officer, Stevens Mwanje have been handed over to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) for further forensic analysis. 

 

While appearing before parliament’s select committee investigating the operations of NSSF, the two officials offered contradicting statements in regard to the Shs 1.8 billion cash released purportedly for corporate social investment (CSI).

Before the probe into the budget started, the committee learned that Shs 1 billion out of the Shs 1.8 billion budget meant for CSI, was allocated to the NSSF board members to reportedly increase the relevance of NSSF.  

Committee chairperson Mwine Mpaka tasked Byarugaba to substantiate claims by the NSSF board that the Shs 1 billion budget was his own making. According to Mpaka, the board members told his committee that they did not request the money and that it was brought to them by Byarugaba.

Bwamba County MP Richard Gafabusa also asked how the budget was generated, and to this, Byarugaba said that corporate social investment was an idea of the board and that the breakdown of Shs 1.8 billion was agreed upon in bulk. He further explained that out of the Shs 1.8 billion, Shs 800 million was identified for workers’ unions to enable them to carry out financial literacy activities.

“So yes, the board might not have been aware of the breakdowns that I mentioned. That breakdown was something that we had discussed with the finance department in terms of allocation but we were not very specific about what would happen. Generally, that Shs 1 billion was for the work of this new innovation that we were about come up with…It wasn’t a gift because f you look at it it was an innovation, the board had asked us to begin thinking about how the board would be relevant,” said Byarugaba.

Mpaka asked Mwanje to explain if he had received a directive from Byarugaba to include the said money in the fund budget. While Mwanje acknowledged the directive, he hastened to add that Byarugaba was equally getting a lot of pressure from ‘above’.

“The MD [Byarugaba] came to me with two issues. One was the Shs 800m, the other one was about the Shs 1 billion. I don’t have anywhere in the budget or related documents a breakdown of that Shs 1 billion,” said Mwanje.

 

“He said he was getting a lot of pressure from ‘above’ and I’m repeating that…He said that he was going to defend it [budget] in the exco,” he added. 

 

However, Byarugaba contradicted him and insisted that the NSSF finance department generated the breakdown of the Shs 1 billion, a statement that prompted Mpaka to question whether the chief financial officer was telling lies to the committee.

 

Byarugaba explained that his role was not to generate the breakdown of the money and that he had received the breakdown via a WhatsApp message from Mwanje. At this point, the select committee chairperson demanded to view the message on Byarugaba’s mobile phone and he informed the members that Mwanje had sent the budget breakdown to Byarugaba on May 4, 2022, at 10:00 pm. 

But Mwanje denied knowledge of the said message, forcing the select committee to demand that he hands over his own phone for scrutiny. After reviewing his phone, Mpaka said that Mwanje seemed to have deleted the message records of between April 30 and May 6, 2022, given that the message is reflected on Byarugaba’s phone.

In response, Mwanje said that financial slides are generated by his team and that he had asked them if they generated the same and they denied it.

This forced MP Mpaka to direct officers from CID attached to the select committee to take the two phones belonging to Byarugaba and Mwanje for forensic examination. Mpaka said that the process was to enable them to determine the source of the message.