Ugandan police have issued criminal summons to former Makerere University Business School (MUBS) Principal, Professor Waswa Balunywa, in connection with allegations of corruption in staff recruitment.
The move comes after detectives from the Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID), led by Director Tom Magambo, failed to locate the 68-year-old academic during a raid at the MUBS campus in Nakawa, Kampala, on Monday. Several staff members were arrested during the operation, which was carried out alongside a similar crackdown at the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) in Entebbe.
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The investigations are part of a broader government effort to address irregular recruitment in public institutions, following President Yoweri Museveni’s July directive to dismiss 152 government employees allegedly hired through corrupt processes and without the required qualifications.
According to the charge sheet approved by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Justice Jane Frances Abodo, Professor Balunywa is accused of abusing his office by appointing unqualified individuals to administrative assistant positions between February and April 2023. Those named as benefiting from the alleged illegal appointments include James Arike, Nathan Nuwagira, and Nimrod Kakayi.
The court documents state that Balunywa knowingly approved the recruitment of staff who did not meet minimum academic requirements, resulting in what prosecutors describe as “ineligible costs” to the government.
Also implicated is former acting Human Resource Director and current Chief Quality Assurance Officer at MUBS, Jacqueline Namaganda, who faces charges of neglect of duty for failing to properly verify the eligibility of the recruits.
Police say Professor Balunywa was expected to appear in court on Monday, 12 February 2025, but his absence during the raid prompted the summons.
The joint operations at MUBS and CAA come amid mounting pressure on government agencies to strengthen recruitment standards and tackle corruption. In his directive, President Museveni warned that unqualified staff weaken service delivery and undermine public confidence, citing incidents such as equipment failures at Entebbe International Airport as examples of the dangers posed by corrupt hiring practices.
Professor Balunywa, a long-serving figure in Uganda’s higher education sector, now faces multiple counts of abuse of office. Investigators have signalled that more arrests and prosecutions are likely as the crackdown on irregular recruitment continues.
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