Former principal accountant with Ministry of Public Service Christopher Obey

The former principal accountant with Ministry of Public Service Christopher Obey has been handed over to   police CID at parliament by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) over failure to account for 155 billion shillings which was allegedly paid to ghost pensioners. Obey was detained on orders of PAC chaired by the woman MP for Serere county, Alice Alaso, after they discovered that Mr. obey did not hand over the files of the names ,he based on to pay ghost pensioners to the pension service registry.

The senior Records officer Pensions Registry with the Ministry of Public Service Doreen Onyango pinned Obey before the committee that he did not hand in alleged ghost files to registry as normal practice which caused 2434 pensioners to miss their pension payments from 2009 to 2011. Onyango told the committee she used a computer system and physically searched for the files used to clear ghost pension but did not exist though Mr. Obey was insisting that he handed over the files to registry.

Members of Parliament said that they are convinced Mr. Obey is liable for payment of ghost pensioners because he was the only one who authorized and created ghost file names of pensioners

At the beginning of the committee proceedings Christopher Obey failed to stop his interrogation over the payment of ghost pensioners. Obey had asked the committee to stop the proceedings saying that the same case was in court and his answer to the committee will compromise his defence in court. He said that the people who sued him are taking advantage of the committee hearings and will use his answers to defeat him in court.

However  MPs including Alice Alaso, Gerald Karuhanga, Martin Muzale and Emma Boona said that obey is just using the case as an excuse to stop the proceedings which the committee will not do. They say court has not yet set the date and time for hearing the case and therefore as the committee they know that what they are doing is not sub judicial to the courts. They said that unless the attorney general writes to the committee they will not stop the proceedings.