The police in the Kiira region are hunting for three staff members of Jinja City Council over the missing road construction equipment and a vehicle. The people in charge are Deputy City Clerk Jinja Peter Mawerere, Assistant City Engineer Lydia Nabirye, and Dennis Bimbonh, who is acting as the senior law enforcement officer.
Two skip loaders with licence plates LG 0018-12 and UR 1602, a bulldozer, a tractor, and a stalled SUV are among the missing pieces of equipment.
A police detective who knows about the investigation says that Mawerere’s family told them that he is bedridden in a private hospital in the Mukono district and can’t come to the police.
James Mubi, who works as a spokesperson for the Kiira Regional Police, told reporters on Saturday that whistleblowers had told them that the equipment had been missing for almost two weeks.
Mubi explains that the two skip loaders went missing on August 7th, while the tractor, SUV vehicle, and bulldozer went missing on August 22. He says that Mawerere, Nabirye, Bimbonha, and the other three security officers for the city council are the only people who know where the missing equipment is, so getting information from them is very important.
Investigations show that Nabirye wrote to Moses Lorika, the City Clerk, and told him that one of the security guards had pinned Bimbonha for taking the road equipment without the city authorities’ knowledge.
Part of her letter says, “I have heard from reliable sources that the acting senior law enforcement officer took two skip loaders and a bulldozer from the parking lot.”
In a letter written on August 25, Lorika tasked Bimbonha and the other three security guards to explain their failure to alert him about the missing equipment.
“You did not make an effort to report to the responsible officials when the equipment was taken, when you are well aware of the due processes involved,” reads his letter in part.