In any serious war, victory is never declared after the first gunfire. Any General who has commanded men knows the most dangerous moment is not when you are charging, but the moment after you have broken the enemy and he appears to be fleeing in disarray.
When the main force breaks contact and flees, the foolish commander orders his soldiers to ululate and celebrate. The wise commander orders the most ruthless phase – what soldiers call mopping-up, policing the battlefield, or the combing operation.
Troops must return to the very field they have just won, not in parade formation but spread in extended line, combing every trench, every bush, every anthill, every abandoned boot, every foxhole and culvert where a remnant could still be hiding with a stolen rifle or stolen loot.
No ground is truly won until it is consolidated. No victory is complete until the battlefield is policed. It is the iron axiom taught at Kaweweta – the joint leadership academy where UPDF, Police and Prisons are ideologically baked – at Kabalye and Sandhurst.
Sun Tzu captured it: opportunities multiply as they are seized. When the enemy breaks, the wise commander does not stop to celebrate but exploits and pursues. Clausewitz called pursuit the second act of victory, in many cases more important than the first. The infantry maxim is blunt: an army that does not mop up will itself be mopped up.
That exact phase is what has now landed in Busoga in the war against PDM thieves. And the General who ordered troops back to finish the job is IGP Abbas Byakagaba.
On direct orders of the Appointing Authority, H.E Gen. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, President and Commander-in-Chief, the IGP deployed hundreds of his sharpest detectives to return to the PDM battlefield in Busoga. Sources at Naguru say the instructions were scorching and unambiguous: no beer, no leisure, no tourism – one mission only, to hunt, handcuff and drag to court every thief who has touched PDM money meant for the poorest widow and youth.
And no wonder he sent hunters, not traffic officers or desk officers. These are operatives who follow paper trails like bloodhounds follow blood.
TEU Box: Unconfirmed Street Talk – Jinja Town Whispers.
TEU hears… and we do not confirm-Word on the streets of Jinja City – and we stress this is unconfirmed bar-talk, not a police record – claims that some of these elite marksmen who can spot a forged signature from 100 metres are also sharp-shooters when it comes to what they fondly code-name as byanas – those curvy, giggling, heavily powdered daughters of Busoga, some who drive posh cars and some innocent-looking campus girls who linger around the nightclubs at 10pm.
We hear that after a long day of arresting ghost SACCO chairmen and interrogating angel-faced lucifers, a few hunters have been spotted accidentally combing not the parish files, but the dance floors, with the same precision and night-vision they use on PDM exhibits.
In this street version, when a byana appears, the case file is temporarily closed and a new investigation – jokingly codenamed Operation Honey / Let’s Chill A Bit – is quietly opened. All gossip, all unverified, all Jinja.
The Real Enemy: The Angel-Faced Lucifers.
In this war, the enemy does not wear uniform and does not carry an AK-47. He hides his weapon in paperwork and his violence in facilitation fees.
He wears a clean white shirt, a gentle smile and a soft voice, and carries a flowery accountability report with colored graphs and neatly stamped receipts that look perfect on top while rotten underneath.
Busoga has been infiltrated by cunning civil servants who look like angels but are financial vampires who suck blood from widows, struggling youth trying to buy two piglets, and single mothers who walk ten kilometers to the parish to access the Shs 1 million meant to kick poverty out of their homes.
Their trick is simple: take Shs 100,000 to 400,000 from each beneficiary as facilitation for transport, photocopying, registration and airtime. Small on the surface, but daily extortion and a direct tax on poverty.
Worse, they cook accountability – perfect grammar, neat tables, stamped receipts, signed attendance lists and photos of a demonstration garden that does not exist, while on the ground the beneficiary got nothing and the money vanished into mobile money accounts of relatives.
Some create their own people – wives, cousins, clansmen, girlfriends – fronting them as beneficiaries while the real list of vulnerable households gathers dust. Ghost SACCO members, forged IDs, wiring money to their own numbers.
They sit in town halls and sub-county offices looking holy, Bible in one hand and quoting the President in the other, but their desks are graveyards of widows’ hopes.
This is the trench now being combed. Byakagaba’s detectives are no longer looking at flowery reports but following the money from Treasury in Kampala to the Wendi account, to the parish SACCO, to the beneficiary’s phone.
The Combing Order At Civil Service College, Jinja.
On Wednesday 2nd September 2026, that combing order was delivered at the Uganda Civil Service College, Jinja City, according to Kiira Region Police spokesperson SP James Mubi.
The man carrying the IGP’s baton was Director Crime Intelligence, AIGP Christopher Dhamulira, who convened a critical PDM follow-up meeting that brought together all RPCs, Regional CIDs, Regional Crime Intelligence Officers, the RCC Jinja City, all RDCs in Busoga and all District Chairpersons LC5.
The team was received and ushered to the venue by the Kiira Regional Police Commander(RPC) SSP Charles Nsaba.
Crucially, it was not just a police affair but the full criminal justice chain on one table. Present was Assistant DPP Busoga, Mr. Alex Michael Ojok, and from ODPP Headquarters, PDM Focal Person Mr. Raymond Mugisha, to ensure seamless coordination between investigation and prosecution.
Their presence closes escape routes: police hunt, DPP charges, court convicts, money returns.
AIGP Dhamulira disclosed that President Museveni himself sanctioned the operation to arrest and prosecute all PDM culprits without fear or favour, particularly those who misappropriate funds and exhibit professional misconduct in disbursement, management and supervision.
He reminded the gathering that PDM is not an entitlement, not free money and not a political gift. It is Government’s multi-sectoral approach to move 39 percent of households from subsistence into the money economy. Theft of this money is sabotage of national transformation.
He then put the August battlefield report on the table: in August 2026 alone in Greater Busoga, 74 suspects apprehended, 70 arraigned before courts, 18 convictions recorded, and over Shs 93 million recovered in hard cash.
He thanked the PDM supervision team led by ACP Bob Kagarura for changing people’s mindset and urged reinforcement of District Coordinating Committees.
From First Assault To Total Combing.
On 7th August 2026, as TEU exclusively reported, the IGP had unleashed the first wave when detectives from Naguru joined Kiira Region RPC SSP Charles Nsaba and ACP Kagarura in a multi-agency sting. Ten suspects were arraigned before Jinja Court for obtaining money by false pretence, theft, conspiracy, forgery, cyber-crimes and neglect of duty, including Charles Kisebe, 55, chairperson-elect of Railway Quarters in Jinja City accused of stealing Shs 700,000 meant for Zaituni Kaumba.
That was the breaking of the enemy line. But if you arrest 10 and leave 64 still forging reports and collecting facilitation fees, they will regroup and continue.
That is why Phase Two – total combing – was ordered. If you do not comb thoroughly, the angel-faced lucifer returns tomorrow in a new shirt with a new flowery report and the same theft.
SSP Charles Nsaba was and remains blunt: whoever steals, frustrates or abets PDM crimes undermines service delivery and nobody will be spared where there is credible evidence.
In a bombshell, ACP Kagarura disclosed that all previous PDM cases that had been compromised have been reviewed and reinstated – the graveyard of files many thought forgotten has been exhumed.
The Deputy Director CID, D/SCP Beata Chelimo, cautioned against civil servants who themselves receive PDM while being supervisors, and called for mandatory training of SACCO managers in financial literacy, records management and community mobilization.
Unlike Entandikwa, Bonna Bagagawale, NAADS and Emyooga which were cash in envelopes, PDM is traceable. Government has injected over Shs 3 trillion nationwide wired via Wendi to every parish SACCO. Every shilling has a digital footprint, and Byakagaba’s team is following that footprint to the dot with the DPP in the same war room.
Final Warning: No Street To Hide.
The meeting ended with stakeholders commending President Museveni for PDM and promising to monitor and hold culprits accountable without fear or favour. They thanked Directors AIGP Dhamulira and AIGP Tom Magambo for standing firm, and all RPCs in Busoga for coordination.
But beyond speeches, the order remains loud and military: troops have returned to the field, they are policing it, and they are combing every parish, every SACCO, every sub-county from Jinja City to Bugweri, Luuka, Kamuli, Namutumba, Bugiri, Mayuge, Iganga and Buyende.
To you who looks like an angel but eats like a lucifer, who takes facilitation from a widow, who fronts your girlfriend as a beneficiary, who cooks flowery reports – your trench is being combed and your flowery accountability is being matched with the tears of the mother you robbed.
As ACP Kagarura warned, we shall be accused of compromise if we don’t expeditiously investigate all misappropriated PDM funds. That accusation is what the IGP has refused to carry.
The IGP has acted. The DPP is on board. The combing continues until every coin is accounted for.
Kisanja No Sleep. Kisanja No Mercy for PDM Thieves.
We Expose, You Decide.
