UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency has trashed media reports that the country representative Mr. Kantande has been fired.
Teresa Ongaro, the Senior Regional Spokesperson, UNHCR told the media at the organization’s office in Kampala today, that Mr. Kantande continues to enjoy the trust and confidence of the leadership of the organization including the head of organization himself, the High Commissioner for Refugees, Mr. Filippo Grandi.
Ms. Ongaro added that Mr. Kantande is on a mission in Kyaka with members of the World Bank among other organizations to continue with the great work, he is doing.
“Mr. Kantande has carried out two years and half of relentless work in a particularly challenging environment characterized by multiple refugee influxes into the country, any reassignment would take place on exactly the same considerations and in keeping with responsibilities which match Mr. Kantande’s experience and the stellar work he has done not only in Uganda but through his UNHCR career” Ms. Ongaro noted.
The UN refugee Agency received complaints from different sources that numbers of refugees in the country and those coming through different borders were being inflated by officials in the office of the Prime Minister, and some organization workers.
While government has already started with investigations, and even fired some officials, UNHCR Inspector General’s office is also carrying out internal independent investigations to get to the bottom of the matter.
According to Ongaro, the organization has no timeline in which to carry out these investigation, though the Ugandan government has announced it will conclude investigations in a space of one month.
Uganda, currently hosts 1,395,146 refugees from different volatile countries. 1,336,898 of these have gone through biometric registration, while 58,248 are still pending registration.
So far, Uganda has received 40,000 new refugees from North Kivu and Ituri in Congo who are fleeing internal conflicts. According to data at UNHCR, the numbers are expected to increase tremendously, leaving the organization in fear, that there might not be enough to feed them.
While more refugees trek into the country, UNHCR has not registered any suspension of aid from donors. However, the organization has been put to task, to verify the numbers of refugees or risk losing all aid.
As for more refugees coming from DRC, the organization has called for more help from well-wishers in order to manage the situation. By September 2017, they had projected that the country would receive 60,000 refugees, but by January, 40,000 had been registered.
This means the numbers will keep rising.
Ms. Ongaro says the organization has zero tolerance for fraud, corruption, misconduct, sexual abuse and exploitation. She however stated that registration of all refugees is the work of the government of Uganda, under the office of the prime minister.
“The government of Uganda has the responsibility to register all refugees arriving in the country. To assist in this process, UNHCR is urgently making available its globally tried and tested tools and systems to verify the refugee process.”
