KAMPALA – The Minister of State for Veteran Affairs, Bright Rwamirama has vowed to evict the former Executive director of the National Animal Genetic Resources (NAGRIC) and Data Bank Dr. Daniel Ssemambo after he refused to leave the official residence of the Executive Director, despite ceasing staff of the institution.
Rwamirama made the threats while addressing the board members of NAGRIC where he noted that for the contract of Dr. Ssemambo was not renewed three years ago and despite ceasing being a member of the entity, he is still occupying the house designated for the executive director’s residence.
He told the NAGRIC and Data Bank board chaired by Dr. Johnson Nkuuhe at Cotton House in Kampala that he will ensure that Dr. Ssemambo is forced to leave the house to allow the new Executive Director Dr. Charles Lagu to take over this house.
Rwamirama also warned the board of the NAGRIC and Data Bank to utilize this institution’s land to avoid encroachers.
He further threatened to investigate how the former staff in NAGRIC sold 420 cows without board approval and were released without proper court proceedings. He noted that many of government farms are currently stocked with poor quality animals.
The Minister said that the good quality animals have been stolen by the people in charge of these farms and replaced with poor quality ones and he directed the board of NAGRIC to ensure that there are no more stealing of these animals and farms stocked with good quality to attract market.
The development comes at the time the December 2019 auditor general report highlighted that Shs39Mn was charged to wrong expenditure codes resulting onto mischarges.
The report further highlighted that a trend analysis of the domestic arrears showed a movement of arrears from Shs149Mn in the previous year to Shs335Mn in the year under review, an increase of 124%. NAGRIC & DB had outstanding arrears to the tune of Shs149,453,658 from the prior year (2017/2018) however, no budget provision was made towards settlement of these arrears in 2018/19.
The report also noted that Shs126.3Million was lost in anticipated sales value of 532 cattle, 232 goats and 75 pigs through death and theft during the year from several NAGRIC & DB farms.
