At least 100 people have been convicted for corruption and ordered to return more than Shs70b they stole from government and private companies in the last 10 years since the Anti-Corruption Court was created, Daily Monitor has learnt.

However, out of the Shs70b, records show that the office of the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has so far managed to recover only Shs1b.
The records also indicate that since 2010, the court has issued compensation orders in 100 case files of which 27 have been followed up.

One of the compensation cases involved three former top officials of the Ministry of Public Service where court convicted them for various corruption offences and ordered them to jointly compensate government with Shs50b.

The officials included Jimmy Lwamafa (ex-permanent secretary), Christopher Obey, (former principal accountant in the Pensions Department) and Stephen Kiwanuka (former director for research and development).

They were convicted of fraudulent budgeting of Shs88.2b as civil servants’ contribution to National Social Security Fund (NSSF) knowing that public servants are exempted from contributing to the Fund.
The money has not been recovered.

Explaining why the recovery rate is still very low, Ms Jane Okuo Kajuga, the DPP spokesperson, yesterday said most of the compensatory cases are still on appeal and that orders to execute them have since been stayed.