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TEHRAN, February 16 -Uganda said on Thursday it was widening a probe of government officials who allegedly stole aid intended for refugees to include UN staff, amid concern the scandal may hold up donor cash needed for the country's surging refugee population.
TEHRAN,Young Journalists Club (YJC) -Uganda said on Thursday it was widening a probe of government officials who allegedly stole aid intended for refugees to include UN staff, amid concern the scandal may hold up donor cash needed for the country's surging refugee population.
Allegations that officials may have inflated refugee numbers to skim aid and engaged in other types of fraud have angered donors and embarrassed a country whose open embrace of a huge influx of refugees from South Sudan's war has won global praise.
The minister for relief, disaster preparedness and refugees, Hilary Onek, told a news conference: "We are investigating all, including the international community... whether there was connivance together with our staff."
Asked whether that covered the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN's refugee agency, known as UNHCR, he said: "All of them are going under scrutiny."
A UNHCR spokesman in Geneva, Babar Baloch, said the UN agency would cooperate with the Ugandan investigation. The UNHCR said last week the probe was initiated after it and WFP brought "grave misconduct by officials" to the attention of authorities.
"UNHCR is encouraged to see Uganda’s resolve to fight fraud and corruption," Baloch told Reuters on Thursday.
Uganda says it is hosting about 1.4 million refugees, more than a million of them from South Sudan, whose four-year civil war has uprooted a quarter of the country's population.
Source:Press TV
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