President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has, in a move that signals the seriousness with which he regards the matter, ordered a formal investigation into financial irregularities said to surround the recruitment of Assistant Resident District Commissioners (A-RDCs) and Assistant Resident City Commissioners (A-RCCs), a decision that followed reports of substantial losses at the Office of the President and that was prompted, in large part, by a whistle-blower who submitted a detailed dossier outlining suspected mismanagement and possible embezzlement of public funds.
According to officials familiar with the matter, the whistle-blower contends that approximately Shs 15 billion was lost during the recruitment process, while further questions have been directed toward remuneration funds that went unexplained over a two-year period, a set of claims that arrives at a moment when national oversight bodies continue to warn, with mounting urgency, about the sheer scale of corruption that pervades Uganda's public institutions.
The Inspectorate of Government (IGG) has, on previous occasions, estimated that the country loses somewhere between Shs 9 trillion and Shs 20 trillion annually to corruption, procurement fraud, and financial mismanagement, a figure that, remarkably, represents nearly 40% of the national budget in certain sectors.
The recruitment of A-RDCs was first approved during the 2022/2023 financial year, at which point funds were appropriated for salaries and operational support, yet the officers in question were not deployed until April 2024, a delay of almost two years beyond the initial clearance of the positions.
Throughout this extended interval, the money that had been set aside was neither returned to the Consolidated Fund nor disbursed to the recruits who would eventually take up their posts, and even once the new officers assumed office in April 2024, they reportedly did not begin receiving their salaries until July 2024, coinciding with the start of the 2024/2025 financial year.
Each Assistant RDC earns a monthly salary of Shs 817,217, which amounts to Shs 9.8 million on an annual basis, together with a monthly allowance of Shs 1.5 million that totals Shs 18 million per year, and given that 432 officers have been deployed across the country, insiders now estimate that more than Shs 24 billion intended for salaries and allowances over the two-year period remains unexplained and unresolved.
An internal audit report produced by the Office of the President contends that the funds in question were used to procure office equipment for the newly appointed officers, though multiple sources dispute this claim outright, pointing out that a considerable number of RDC offices remain poorly furnished to this day.
Several Assistant RDCs reportedly find themselves sharing office space with secretaries and other support staff, whereas others operate entirely without designated workstations of their own, and the whistle-blower's dossier contends that the procurement narrative put forward by the audit is fundamentally inconsistent with the conditions actually observed in the field.
The recruitment of A-RDCs had, well before these latest revelations surfaced, already encountered resistance from Parliament, whose legislators argued that expanding the RDC structure would impose an unnecessary financial burden upon taxpayers, particularly at a moment when the government was already contending with rising public expenditure across the board.
The Parliamentary Budget Committee had warned, in no uncertain terms, that the addition of these officers would increase the wage bill by more than Shs 10 billion annually, and it urged the Executive to reconsider the move before proceeding further, though the deployment ultimately went ahead once the President defended the decision as a necessary step toward strengthening supervision of government programmes nationwide.
The dossier submitted to the President reportedly extends well beyond the A-RDC matter alone, drawing attention to alleged mismanagement within several agencies operating under the Office of the President, such as the Uganda AIDS Commission, the Uganda Printing and Publishing Corporation (UPPC), and the National Leadership Institute (NALI), all of which have, on previous occasions, been cited in Auditor General reports for procurement inconsistencies and gaps in answerability.
President Museveni has, on numerous occasions, reiterated his commitment to combating corruption, describing it as one of the principal obstacles standing in the way of national development, and in a number of public addresses he has vowed to take firm action against any official found to be implicated in financial misconduct.
"Corruption is an enemy of progress, and those who engage in it will face consequences," he has said in past statements, and his government has, over the years, sanctioned or prosecuted officials across a range of ministries and agencies, even as watchdog groups continue to call, with growing insistence, for stronger enforcement mechanisms.
In response to these latest claims, the President has directed the Director-General of the Internal Security Organisation (ISO) to carry out a thorough and comprehensive investigation, with a report expected to be submitted within a period of two weeks, and the inquiry itself is anticipated to examine the timeline surrounding the recruitment process, the manner in which appropriated funds were utilised, the authenticity of the procurement claims advanced by the internal audit, and the possibility that ghost officers may have been added to the payroll, a recurring difficulty that has long troubled Uganda's public service.
The revelations that have now come to light appear to lend considerable weight to the concerns that Parliament had voiced at an earlier stage regarding the financial implications tied to expanding the RDC structure, given that legislators had, at the time, warned that the recruitment process could create openings for the misuse of public funds and place additional strain upon the national budget, and the details now emerging suggest that the financial irregularities involved may extend well beyond what was initially understood by the public and by oversight institutions alike.
Further disclosures are widely anticipated as investigators proceed to review payroll records together with deployment lists, and early indications suggest that the total number of Assistant RDCs may, in fact, have been inflated beyond what official figures currently reflect, a possibility that opens up additional questions regarding answerability within the Office of the President.
