The media has been awash with stories about the former Managing Director of the National Social Security Fund and his involvement in the financial scandals that have hit NSSF over the last few years.

However, one of the many stories that captured the shock and attention of the public was the one that talked of Jamwa spending NSSF money in casinos abroad. And when on Tuesday 22 June 22, 2010 Jamwa was brought in a white Toyota Double Cabin pick-up to Parliament straight from Busia  his appearance was surely akin to that of a Casino guy.

Clad in a pair of blue Jeans and a black T-shirt with a picture that is a product of Swarziniger's film "terminator" Jamwa sweated and panted up the stairs of Parliament, visibly stressed and distressed with journalists running all over him to take the shots and shoots of the former NSSF boss.

His bloodshot eyes were roaming in almost every direction as if unsure of himself or like a pick pocket after an act of theft looks around to see whether any eye has noticed his act of theft but ever avoiding the direction of the journalists despite that they were all around him.

Meanwhile the tight security guarded and guided him to the Parliamentary Committee on Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises. May be his visible stress and distress could arouse some pity for Jamwa at least before a sympathetic on looker but not when coupled with such a defiant disposition as that which Jamwa carried.

Just a day before the committee had started investigations concerning a forensic report of the Auditor General on NSSF that covers the period between February 2005 to November 2009 in which a number of former NSSF officials (obviously Jamwa is one of them) have been implicated for mismanaging NSSF cash. The Chairman of the committee Reagan Okumu in that respect made a directive that all those officials that are implicated in that report should not get of the country.

"All the people implicated in the forensic report should hang around town and wait to be summoned. We want them to stay around town" directed Reagan Okumu.

Hardly 24 hours later, Jamwa was arrested at the Uganda- Kenya boarder but on relatively different grounds though coincidentally the committee benefited from his arrest. "We as the committee never ordered for Jamwa's arrest" explained the Aswa county Member of Parliament who is also the chairperson of the committee.

The committee does not have powers to arrest any one" added Reagan Okumu added. It was not until a little later that evening that it was discovered that Jamwa's arrest was as a result of an order of the IGG who must have then collected enough evidence to pin Jamwa for alleged corruption crimes.

For Jamwa he will leave to remember that day and may be curse it, for surely the look he carried on having been brought out of that car that brought him from the border to Parliament surely it carried a lot of anxiety in it, one that any one would live to curse.

To make matters worse later that evening he spent it in Luzira and could spend a couple more days or even years if later the court decides against him. But most important is that his first evening in Luzira on aspects related to NSSF was on that dreadful Tuesday.  

May be to put it before you a little more casually, we should simply say it was just Jamwa's bad day out and surely on a good day he could have sneaked out of the country.

Tiberindwa Zakaria blog comments powered by Disqus

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