Court Grants Bail to Former MUBS Principal Balunywa

The Anti-corruption court  has granted a 15 million shillings cash bail to the former  Makerere University Business School (MUBS) principal Prof. Waswa Balunywa.

Balunywa has spent two nights in prison over corruption-related charges involving illegal staff recruitments.

Chief magistrate Reacheal Nakyazze has granted the bail after the DPP did not object.

Senior Asst. DPP Carolyne Nabassa says she had instructions not to oppose the bail application but rather leave it to the discretion of court and to impose strigent terms in his sureties to make sure they compel the 69year old professor to return to court for trial.

Consquently each of his eight sureties has been ordered to execute a non -cash bond of 100 million shillings.  

Professor Balunywa will return to court on the 15th October for a pre -trial hearing. 

Its alleged that Prof. Balunywa, while still principal at MUBS, abused his office between February and April 2023 when he irregularly recruited three individuals James Arike, Nathan Nuwagira, and Nimrod Kakayi as Administrative Assistants without the required academic qualifications.

In  another case file,  prof Balunywa is said to have recruitment more than 103 academic staff, 17 Administrative officers and 69 support staff, an act that should be performed by the Appointments Committee. 

According to the prosecution, the said recruitments are  said to have created ineligible costs to government, forming the basis of the corruption case.

Balunywa is co- jointly accused with  Jacqueline Namaganda, the former acting Human Resource Director and currently serving as the chief Quality Assurance Officer at MUBS.

Namaganda  faces three counts of neglect of duty for allegedly failing to verify the eligibility of the  recruits before they were appointed.

Balunywa and Namaganda have since denied the allegations.