In 2003, President Yoweri Museveni established a commission of inquiry to investigate the existence of ghost soldiers on the army register. The commission was chaired by the defence minister, Amama Mbabazi and included generals Salim Saleh and David Tinyefuza. Former Army commander, Maj. Gen. James Kazini appeared before the commission in October 2003 and below are the excerpts.
Q: Sir, we come to the directive of H.E. of 5th March 2002, it was titled “under strength in UPDF.â€Â This directive was saying among other things that other ranks should not be transferable and that fragmented deployments below Bde level should not be made. We have evidence that this directive was defied by various officers. We would like your comment on that.
Kazini:  We tried to implement that one. For sure transfer of men stopped unless something was done otherwise and transfer of officers was always done after thorough consultations with the C-I-C (Commander-in-Chief)but really transfer of men was stopped.
The evidence we have on record shows that it was carried out routinely?
That one I don’t know maybe it was done behind my back.
So you don’t know why it continued?
It didn’t come to my notice. You know what was happening before transfers was not smooth transfer. What was happening soldiers would say come on sick leave to BMH or GMH then the admin officer there would make a nominal roll. That would automatically become a transfer because he would just be paid there until the C-I-C came in to say no transfers because there was no system of transfer. In fact transfers if you go to records was mostly done by records department either on pay in favours but to say there was a system of transferring men no.
So are you saying it stopped after the directive?
It stopped according to me. That one COS (Chief of staff) can really give you more information on that.Â
How about fragmented deployments because there is evidence
That deployments could still be below Bde strength after that directive.
But that means that soldiers were not there. And if you look at the returns of this payable…. There are few men in units like this is a verex document of May, battalions have 556 men instead of 736, have the deployment below Bde strength is out of here. The battalions are not full and it’s confirmed by this payable strength.
You have explained the fragmented deployments because of under strength in units. It seems the idea was that a battalion should not be sent outside its area of responsibility.
Now you see 5th Div was created as a zonal division and 4th div was supposed to be mobile but the prevailing circumstances at times would not allow. You had to keep switching forces like in Soroti you can see forces have moved to Soroti. At times situation would not allow because you see we created zonal forces. These I was talking about these irregular forces called reserves, the LDU battalions, those battalions if you look at how they are formed up Alpha, Papa but you can see they don’t follow the regular standards you would find a battalion then you say let them have 300 because they are not regular as per establishment and you can see how the whole system came different from regular. They used to tell us here that this money comes from Internal Affairs so they had a different pay system and a different method that is why it was irregular because documentation was not normally done because it was supposed to be temporary force to be disbanded anytime like Bunyoro –Buganda LDUs. When the war ended they were just simply told to go home and they returned the guns.
On the question of Bunyoro-Buganda, it’s alleged that actually there were a lot of ghosts in that operation.Â
Then the battalion commander at that time and the Div CO, they were under 1st Div they should be asked.
Did you hear anything about it?
Yes, we heard something about it but actually we failed to monitor the situation. It was difficult at times. Unless this insurgency ends that’s when you can line people up otherwise you can get problems e.g. go to Kagadi and say now I am surprised where are the units? they have gone for patrol in this Budongo forest. Can you go there?
In Gulu, on 31 Oct 02 there was a meeting which H.E. attended partly and its was chaired by you that people should declare ghosts by 1 Nov 02 so that we start afresh. Since it appears that people did not declare the ghosts, what steps were taken?
They did. That is why the strength levels went down. Those who remained with a few could be may be have come after but they did because suddenly the payable strength dropped to almost 4000 for the whole army.
About 4000 was dropped?
Yes if you can get that payable strength you look at the totals and see what has transpired in the months that followed. I can say there was a drastic decline in strength until we recruited other forces. We recruited an extra Bde 509 for 5th Div and another battalion that’s where it stopped but otherwise it kept going down.
So you should get the payable strength for the month of September 02 and then the payable strength for the month of Nov, Dec 02 for comparison?
And get to know the new recruitment that was done because there is 509 Bde.
That recruitment was done in which month?
I don’t remember but it was when 5th Div was being created. 5th Div was formed from within the army. Then we got another extra Bde and 3 other battalions, the 91, 93 and 95. But there was an obvious decline in payable strength.
So you are saying that it was successful?
It was successful.
It was alleged by people that in this meeting of Gulu that actually you remained behind after the amnesty of C-I-C and told commanders that Mu sijali iyo mambo mimi nta maliza. Muweke ghosts akuna shida iyo mambo ni kawida mukule. That you gave them another month.
Because minutes, are there, I said gentlemen this is the C-I-C
saying this. In fact we were supposed to write a report on something which the President refused to sign. I said gentlemen we know we still have things, why don’t you now declare? Just one month because money was already out as we were talking the drafts were already in circulation. Eat that now but next month just remove that trash. That is what I said because we could not retrieve it anyway.
You thought what?
I thought that now I could open their minds to say instead of diving because I have committed myself by signature. Let me eat this one then next month I declare.
You say money was already out.
Yes. Money was already out even when we were talking in that very meeting paymasters were already paying.
409 Bde was allegedly made autonomous by you. It would report to you directly instead of the Div commander. Can you explain to us.
You know at one time they crossed over to DRC and DRC matters were safe haven and I was directly the one in control of safe Haven. There was no way they could send situation reports to the Div CO when I was controlling Congo matters. But not on pay not on any other matters, it was just operation.
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