By Francis Lubega
20th July 2023
The Minister for Trade, Industry and Cooperatives, Francis Mwebasa has vowed to immediately suspend the embattled Executive Director of the Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS), David Ebiru over misappropriation of funds and misconduct.
While appearing before Parliament’s Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises-COSASE chaired by Nakawa West MP, Joel Ssenyonyi, Mwebasa expressed shock over Ebiru’s stay in office yet he had ordered the Board to suspend him in June 2023.
Ebiru is being accused for misuse of the bureau funds, incompetence, having no qualifications for the job as per the Auditor General’s report of 2022 and also bribing Board members with 100m shillings to keep his job.
It’s from this interaction that the COSASE Chairperson Ssenyonyi tasked the Minister to commit himself to write a suspension letter to Ebiru to go on a forced leave as further investigations against him continue.
Ebiru while appearing before COSASE on July 19th 2023 revealed that he borrowed Shs 100m and handed it to one of the Board members; Robert Mwanje on behalf of the Board Chairperson Charles Musekura.
However, during the exchange in the committee, the claimed recipient of the Shs 100m denied receiving it from Ebiru which led to the ruling from Ssenyonyi to direct Parliament’s CID Officers to further interrogate the bribery case for criminal charges and prosecution to start.
Meanwhile, Ebiru has also been faulted for failing to take action against the Bureau Staff who he alleged to have received a bribe of over Shs 19 billion from traders to allow them to import fake goods on to the Ugandan market without standard inspection and instead transferred them to other working stations.
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