KAMPALA, UGANDA: The Office of the Auditor General has highlighted incidences of rot in the expenditure of covid funds among public agencies.
This is contained in the summarized audit report dated December 2021 that the Auditor General, John Muwanga handed over to the Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Anita Among.
In one of the incidences, Edward Akol, Acting Assistant Auditor General-Audits pointed out that a total of Shs676bn was allocated and disbursed to various Ministries, Departments and Agencies(MDAs) to settle domestic arrears with a view of improving liquidity within the local business community.
And although 90% of funds were used appropriately for the intended purpose, there was a diversion to pay unrelated items worth Shs4.897Bn, unsupported domestic arrears of Shs27.38Bn and payment for contested domestic arrears of Shs1.245Bn
The report also pointed outShs260Bn allocated for the Emyooga programme was disbursed to Microfinance Support Centre to transform household incomes, Shs219.40Bn had so far been disbursed to 6,326 Emyooga SACCOs.
However, auditors noted that the SACCOS were in the process of obtaining operational licenses and as such, there were no Memorandum of Understanding entered into between the disbursing entity and the beneficiary SACCOs yet Shs34.716Bn has already been disbursed but hasn’t yet reached the intended SACCOs.
The report also decried the indecision on the issue of welfare of medical workers who were on the frontline treating Covid-19 patients.
According to the report, whereas medical workers requested to be given Shs150,00 per day as risk allowances, this was not possible and they were instead paid Shs80,000 per day.
The medical workers made a request to Parliament to have this amount exempted from taxes, but the issue was never resolved and this saw Shs2.2Bn meant for PAYE deducted from the allowances paid to medical workers in the period under review.
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