The office of the Inspector General of Government (IGG) in Uganda has ordered a senior civil servant in Masaka District to refund more than Shs 25 million that was wrongly paid to a deceased pensioner. The directive was issued by the deputy IGG, Anne Twinomugisha Muhairwe, after an investigation exposed serious irregularities in the district’s pension management system.
The officer, identified as Mr. Kityo Mugagga, who works as the Human Resource Officer in Masaka District, was accused of deliberately altering the records of a dead pensioner in order to keep him on the payroll for years. According to the IGG, Mugagga continued to process pension payments for Mr. Joseph Henry Kyeyune, a retired civil servant who died in 2015.
Kyeyune, who once served as a senior technician with the East African Posts and Telegraph, was placed on the Masaka District Local Government pension payroll in 2015. But instead of being removed after his death, his details were manipulated. Investigators said Mugagga altered key information such as the date of birth, which allowed fraudulent pension benefits to continue flowing.
For more than five years, the deceased’s bank account at Centenary Bank continued to receive monthly pension deposits. The money was later withdrawn by members of Kyeyune’s family, despite the law requiring pensioners to present annual “life certificates” as proof that they are still alive. That rule was ignored by the responsible officer.
By the time Kyeyune was finally removed from the payroll in February 2022, a total of Shs 32.4 million had been irregularly paid. At the point of inspection by the IGG, a balance of Shs 7.1 million was still in the account, leaving a recoverable sum of Shs 25.3 million which Mr. Mugagga must now refund.
The IGG ruled that Mugagga’s conduct was a breach of the Pensions Act and described his behaviour as abuse of office, gross negligence and failure to perform his official duties. He will also appear before the Masaka District Service Commission for disciplinary action, while the office continues to track other irregular payments across the country.
The case has once again thrown the spotlight on the persistent problem of “ghost pensioners” in Uganda. Over the past decade, billions of shillings have been lost through fraudulent schemes involving deceased or fictitious beneficiaries.
Back in 2012, the government had to suspend pension payments entirely after investigations revealed that more than Shs 155 billion had been siphoned through ghost pensioners in the Ministry of Public Service. In the same year, police also uncovered an additional Shs 10 billion that had been fraudulently paid to more than 3,000 non-existent beneficiaries.
A 2016 report further exposed losses amounting to Shs 23 billion to ghost pensioners, while reports from the Auditor General in 2014 and 2015 highlighted monthly leakages of Shs 12.7 billion and Shs 11 billion respectively.
More recently, in 2024, the Auditor General intensified verification measures, including physical headcounts of pensioners. The IGG also launched investigations into more than 24,000 suspected ghost pension cases across Uganda.
The government has been trying to close loopholes by integrating the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) with the Human Capital Management System (HCMS) under a Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2018. The idea was to use biometric data to ensure that only genuine pensioners are paid.
But the Auditor General’s 2024 audit showed that weaknesses remain in the system. The report pointed out that records of deceased civil servants are still not being updated automatically. “The failure to promptly update records of deceased civil servants may lead to delayed deletion and continued salary or pension payments. This could result in financial loss to the government,” the report warned.
The Auditor General urged stronger integration between NIRA and the HCMS to stop further fraud. Analysts say without urgent reforms, Uganda risks losing more public funds to ghost pension schemes. For now, the case of Mr. Mugagga is seen as a test of government’s seriousness in fighting corruption in pension administration.
