The Director of Public Prosecution has withdrawn corruption related charges against 69 year old Former MUBS Principal Professor Waswa Balunywa before the Anti Corruption Court in Kampala.
The charges were withdrawn on Wednesday before the Court presided over by Grade one Magistrate Christopher Opit. This was in a withdrawal form dated November 7th 2025 in which the outgoing Director of Public Prosecutions Jane Frances Abodo withdrew the charges of abuse of office, neglect of duty and corruption in the case in which Balunywa had jointly been charged with the Acting Human Resource Manager Jacqueline Namaganda.
The Nolle Prosequi was tendered before Court by Principal Assistant DPP Caroline Nabaasa when the matter came up for mention indicating that the state has decided to discontinue proceedings.
Prior to withdrawing the charges, Balunywa who was arraigned in Court in September had spent three days at Luzira prison before he secured a cash bail of 15 million shillings on two separate case files that were levied against him.
In the case where charges have been withdrawn, the prosecution had alleged that between March 18 and March 28, 2023, while serving as Principal, Balunywa arbitrarily appointed three individuals James Arike, Nimrod Kakayi, and Nathan Niwagira as Administrative Assistants.
It is alleged that the recruits did not possess the minimum academic qualifications for the roles, which led to ineligible financial obligations for the government.
By the time he faced this charge, criminal summons had already been issued against him wanting him to bring himself before Court. Co-accused Namaganda had at that time slept in prison for some days and also released on bail.
When he was charged and he applied for bail on this on this particular case, Prosecution immediately within the Court room, brought a separate file in the proceedings that were presided over by Chief Magistrate Rachael Nakyazze.
In the fresh case, Balunywa was accused of having recruited over 200 staff members between 2020 and 2023 without following legal procedures. The court heard that he irregularly appointed 103 academic staff, 17 administrative staff, and 69 support staff, an action that, according to prosecutors, could only lawfully be carried out by the Appointments Committee.
Though the DPP stated they were withdrawing charges in both files, the Nolle Prosequi in the second file had typing errors, so proceedings weren’t completed.
The matter was adjourned to November 25th 2025 for the Prosecution to correct the typing errors and then to be formally discharged.
For now, Professor Balunywa is discharged and set free on one case file.
Balunywa and his co-accused, Jacqueline Namaganda were among a group of thirty individuals under investigation in a mega corruption scandal that has since implicated officials across various government institutions including Uganda Police Force and Civil Aviation Authority.
The group is alleged to have collectively caused financial losses amounting to 53 billion shillings to the government of Uganda. So far, at least fifteen of the suspects have already appeared before the courts.
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