President Yoweri Museveni has pardoned Jimmy Lwamafa, the former Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Public Service, and 199 other inmates.
According to the Uganda Prison Services Spokesperson, Frank Baine, Lwamafa has been pardoned on account of old age and good behavior.
“He is over 65 years old and he falls in the category of the elderly. In addition, he has been not well and he qualifies to be released under the terminally ill grounds,” Baine said.
He explained that all the pardoned inmates would return to their respective homes by the end of Tuesday.
In 2016, Three Ugandan public service ministry officials got 22 years imprisonment for stealing more than $25 million from the pension funds.
Jimmy Lwamafa, former permanent secretary of the Ministry of Public Services, Kiwanuka Kunsa, former head of the research and development department, and Christopher Obey, former chief accountant of the Ministry of Public Services were sentenced to 10, 7 and 5 years in jail respectively.
“The anti-corruption court found the three offenders guilty of causing financial loss, abuse of office, neglect of duty, embezzlement and connivance to defraud the Ugandan government,” a spokesman for the Ugandan judiciary, Solomon Muyita stated.
It is said that these three senior officials enriched themselves by paying pensions to pensioners whose identities were forged
