Lira District Staff surveyors Opio Francis and Atoo Rebecca have been charged with fraudulent procurement of a title on government land.
The two were arraigned in court on Wednesday, 04 January 2023, and charged with fraudulent procurement of title, conspiracy to commit a felony and abuse of office. They were remanded till February 28, 2023.
The two accused allegedly conspired and fraudulently obtained a title on government land plot 3-5 Ireda Estate in Lira in the names of Atoo Rebecca.
They were allegedly assisted by the Natural Resources Officer, Otike Pabious and the Lira MZO Cartographer Ogwang Joel. All the accused deny the charges.
Since the creation of State House Anti-Corruption Unit (SHACU) in December 2018 by President Yoweri Museveni, acting under Article 99 (4) of the Constitution, the Unit has in liaison with the Criminal Investigations Department of Uganda Police have carried out several anti-corruption investigations and caused the charging of several persons before the Courts of Law.
The Unit has so far conducted investigations on corruption related offences in the Central Government (Ministries, Departments and Agencies), Local Governments and the Private Sector.
By 2020, these investigations had seen 146 persons have been charged before courts of law. It had also recovered Shs 1.73b.
In 2022, the Auditor General (AG) ranked top in recovering money pilfered by public officials followed by the State House Anti-Corruption Unit (SHACU) with the Inspectorate of Government coming third on that yardstick.
The three agencies, which are frontline anti-graft soldiers, combined over the past three years got back into state coffers about Shs241b taken out by bureaucrats, according to a scorecard released last month.
