Mbarara district officials tasked to refund over Shs 5mln
MBARARA- Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee [PAC] has grilled the Mbarara district Chief Administrative Officer Edward Kasagara [CAO] and Principal Human Resource Officer Allan Kagaba for causing the district a financial loss of over Shs 5 million.
Kagaba failed to account for Shs 1.13 mln which he said he ‘mistakenly’ paid to some of the district staff, and therefore an overpay.
The committee chaired by MP Martin Ojara Mapenduzi said the queries arise from the Auditor General’s report for the financial year 2020/2021.
During interrogations, the committee realised that due to negligence, Kagaba overpaid Shs 1.13mln ex gratia and he was directed to refund the missing funds.
“We are not saying you stole that money but you didn’t perform what was required. When you cause financial loss to government by law you are required to recover that money and for that matter, you must repay that money before 15th June 2022,” Mapenduzi directed.
The committee further recommended that the district CAO Edward Kasagara, should recover a total of Shs 4.8 mln he never deducted from the district and sub-county leaders in taxes.
“We have also detected where certain deductions are not made especially the taxes. The law is very clear, when you are employed by government you are supposed pay tax [Pay As You Earn]. The CAO has to recover Shs 4.8mln. He has already recovered Shs 1mln and we have only given him up to the 15th of June,” Mapenduzi explained.
The MPs also found diversion of funds by the district officials meant for specific projects which they said is illegal and punishable.
“Also the other Shs 601 mln that was paid wrongly we have directed our technical people to study their responses this evening and by tomorrow we will take a decision where money meant for a particular activity was used for another unplanned activity, it is illegal and it causes financial loss to government”. He said
Mapenduzi said part of the work of the committee is to help local government to improve service delivery.
“We want them to improve it is not all about arresting and detaining because we are not the torture chambers, it is partly to help local governments to improve so as we hold them accountable”
For instance, they have paid about Shs 2bln to the contractor to construct Bukiro Seed School but we were told by the LC V chairman that there are certain things that are not right and we are going there to assess whether there is value for money, Mapenduzi adds
Also in Mbarara City, the MPs were shocked to find that Shs 23.6bln is earmarked for tarmacking 2.5kms of a road as part of infrastructure development.
“Musita-Lumino road is 104kms and its cost was 207 bln but in Mbarara city 2kms of a road is costing government 23.6 bln for sure an investigation needs to be done to unveil more from this contract so that we find out who is behind this” added Bugiri district Woman MP Agnes Taaka.
“Actually in the capital Kampala we’ve seen roads equivalent to 5km that are being constructed where government spends only 10 bln and when we have asked why they are spending such huge amounts of money they are telling us issues to do with duo-carriage where they are going to construct the drainage systems as if in other cities don’t consider drainage channels,” added Rubaga North MP Abubaker Kawalya.
The three roads undergoing construction include; Victor-bwana road (0.95kms), Stanley road (0.78Kms), and Galt road (0.63kms) contracted to multiplex Construction Company.
Kawalya said Mbarara city is being run in a briefcase where the city leadership has no physical plan to follow its development.
“The way Mbarara city is being managed “is To Whom It May Concern”, the accounting officer has no information whichever question you ask they ask for more time to review even reports presented are still wanting because there is no way how a city can run without a strategic plan,” Kawalya said.
“I think Mbarara needs more visits and monitoring from parliament or the office of the auditor general than any other city so that they are put on tenterhooks to perform and account for the government funds. How can an officer die and then the office of the town clerk keep paying the dead until 6 months,” Taaka added.
The committee also got shocked to find that Mbarara City received approximately Shs 6.3 bln that was not budgeted for.
“We were surprised because Mbarara is a unique city which gets money that it didn’t even plan for when other districts are crying for UWEP money and others crying to get money to do work on a km road,” said Taaka.
Whoever mismanages public funds is going to be held accountable if it needs firing the accounting officer of Mbarara City or any other person in that public office we shall do. At first, we thought maybe the auditor general’s report was misleading parliament but we have found out that whatever was raised from Mbarara City is true, added Kawalya.
Unlike in the past this time PAC moved with the ministry of local government representatives to ascertain the performance of their juniors in the districts.
“We have invited the PS to see how their officers are working because our expectation is that the accounting officers who are not performing well should be relieved because why should you appoint somebody who is not performing,” Mapenduzi said.
https://thecooperator.news/mps-quiz-land-commission-officials-over-fraud/
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