The April 2022 fire that gutted the stores of Ministry of Agriculture in Wandegeya destroyed property over Shs2.4Bn according to the Auditor General in his June 2022 report to Parliament.
The although Section 34(1) of the Public Finance Management Act 2015 states that an Accounting Officer shall be responsible for the management of assets and inventories, the auditors while reviewing the stores management records and inspection of the stores revealed that in 2022, there was a fire outbreak at the Ministry of Agriculture stores located along Buganda Road in which a number of inventory items were lost.
The items included; fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, assorted stationery, veterinary drugs, vaccines, spray pumps, protective gears, assets like refrigerators.
“Out of the 62 items kept in the stores and burnt; book values could only be ascertained for 34 items with a total estimate of Shs2.366Bn. The value for the rest of the items could not be established due to incomplete and insufficient information,” read in part the Audit report.
The Auditors noted that although Police investigation attributed the cause of fire to uncontrolled rubbish burning by the cleaners, they however blamed the Ministry of Agriculture for failing to control the fire outbreak on time due to the lack of effective firefighting equipment at Wandegeya stores.
David Kasura, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture while appearing before Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) concurred with the findings of the Auditor General, saying the stores have been organized and the firefighting equipment are yet to be delivered pending final remodeling of the stores.
“We have re-organised these stores, we went through the process that is required, we had the Police investigation, the real cause of the fire was one young man, the guard there was careless, I think he was burning some leaves and he burnt the place. We are actually lucky he didn’t burn our offices,” said Kasura.
A preliminary report by Police in April 2022 indicated that two suspects Jerry Ajambo Jerry and Eunice Namusimbi who were cleaners within the premises were arrested after it was reported that the fire came from burning rubbish from nearby.
According to the 2022 Annual Crime report by Uganda Police, the force recorded a total of 1,747 cases of arson, compared to 1,803 reported in 2021. The report indicated that Kiryadongo district recorded the highest number of arson cases 62, Nwoya-57, Oyam-44, Omoro-38 and Lamwo-35 cases.
