The State House Anti-Corruption Unit has arrested a pastor for allegedly fleecing several people millions of shillings with false promises to benefit from foreign trips and state programs.
The man of God was arrested at the Mutukula border with Tanzania while fleeing the country on Sunday.
The head of the State House Anti-Corruption Unit, Lt Col Edith Nakalema, said, detectives, have been tracking the pastor and finally arrested him before leaving the country.
The pastor’s two co-accused are still on the run, according to Lt Col Edith.
The pastor is accused alongside another pastor and a lawyer for defrauding the members of the public by false promises for foreign trips and meeting Uganda’s president Yoweri Museveni.
Between 2017 and August 2020, directors of more than 400 private schools and 30,000 other people from various parts of the country, are reportedly been mobilized and duped into paying monies to benefit various government initiatives to enhance their livelihoods.
State House-Anti Corruption detectives said the two pastors and the lawyer have been using President Museveni’s name, that of his wife Janet, and brother Gen Salim Saleh to dupe people into paying the monies and later threatened them when they demanded accountability.
Lt Col Edith questioned how people of influence such as pastors could deal with wrong people.
“You should know the people you are dealing with. When you tell me that you represent a whole region, you should know who is the right person and the wrong one. You should have followed up where your money was going,” she said while addressing the victims of the fraud.
Some of the victims of the fraud included pastors, NRM mobilizers, soldiers, and other government officials.
Pastor Edward Masaba said the implicated pastor who heads a pentecostal church together with his co-accused formed an organization – Hands Across the World Initiative Uganda, where they paid the money and were fleeced
According to reports, in July 2017, the three suspects rolled out a program known as Isreal Trip and sought 200 people to take to Israel. In return 40 people paid Sh500,000 each, 75 others paid Sh650,000 each, 20 people paid Shs910,000 each, 15 paid Shs950,000 each, while the other 15 people paid Shs1m each for the trip that did not materialize.
Pastor Masaba, who was elected the president of Hands Across the World Initiative Uganda, alleges that in January 2018, he was made to mobilize and register another 1,528 people for a trip to South Africa and each was made to pay Shs50,000 but it did not happen.
According to Pastor Masaba, the purported trip was that the accused pastor “got friends in Israel and they wanted him to take his Christians there because he told them he has more than 500 members yet he did not have them and he had to call and get more pastors across the country.”
The pastor added that over a hundred were to go to Israel for training for the organization where 50 of the members would be to the director’s position
Masaba added that in October 2017, they also mobilized and registered 279,606 needy people from around the country, including the orphans, elderly, widows, people living with HIV, PWDs, single mothers, and newborn babies who paid Shs25,000 each.
Pastor Steven Naaya from Nangabo Church in Kasangati Town Council, Wakiso District, said in June 2019 he met the accused person who told him he works in State House and introduced him to an NRM mobilizer identified as Kisanja and another person called Magoola.
“At the meeting, he [implicated pastor] told me that the President had sent him to mobilize people to campaign for him through churches and he promised to bring so many high-profile people to us to confirm that he works with the President,” he said as reported by the Daily Monitor.
- Busia Residents Rush For The New Gold Mine
- Uganda Conjoined Twins Die As Parents Struggle To Raise Money
- President Museveni Threatens To Use Guns “To Bring Order In Uganda”
- A Pastor In Migori Arrested For Defiling And Impregnating A 14-year-Old Girl
Instead of going to the President, Pastor Naaya said the pastor instead invited them to meet Ms. Lucy Nakyobe, the State House Comptroller, at Bombo Revival Christian Ministries.
“We sat on December 31, 2019; all the pastors came but the President and Ms. Nakyobe did not come. Instead, we saw Catherine Kusasira who came at midnight with heavily armed guards. He told us that her presence is equal to meeting the President,” Pastor Naaya said according to the Ugandan daily.
