Withdraw disqualified accounting officers, activists ask Muhakanizi

The Secretary to the Treasury, Mr Keith Muhakanizi (R), and his team appear before the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament recently. Activits want Muhakanizi to remove Accounting ofificers who have not accounted for taxpayers’ money for the financial year ending June 30.PHOTO BY FAISWAL KASIRYE 

By EPHRAIM KASOZI

In Summary

At fault. The list before Parliament includes accounting officers who failed to account for taxpayers’ money in the previous financial year as required by law.

Kampala. Anti-Corruption activists have asked the Secretary to the Treasury in the Ministry of Finance to withdraw a list of officers submitted to Parliament, arguing that some of them are disqualified.
Speaking at a joint press conference in Kampala last week, the activists said the list before Parliament comprises of accounting officers who failed to account for taxpayers’ money in the previous financial year as required by law.

“We have found out that out of the 107 audited institutions, 75 entities had unqualified opinions and 32 had qualified opinions. As such, the accounting officers of those institutions with qualified opinion should have not been appointed,” said Mr Julius Mukunda, the Coordinator of the Civil Society Budget Advocacy Group.
A qualified opinion is given when the Auditor General is not satisfied that the accounts presented are a true and fair record of the actual.

Mr Mukunda described a qualified opinion as an unclean bill of health for the financial statements presented and questions the integrity of financial records presented.
According to the Auditor General’s financial report for the year 2013/14, payment certificates revealed irregularities related to payments for works not executed, payments for defective works and payments that could have been avoided with better procurement planning and contract management.

The report lists central government institutions that have a qualified opinion including Uganda Consolidated Fund, Treasury, Directorate of Ethics and Integrity, Makerere University, Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Public Service Commission, Uganda National Roads Authority and Directorate of Public Prosecutions among others.
Ms Cissy Kagaba, the executive director of the Anti-Corruption Coalition Uganda, asked the Speaker of Parliament, Ms Rebecca Kadaga, to reject the current list of accounting officers because taxpayers are likely to incur more loses.

“We find that the criteria used were not restrictive enough to weed out the accounting officers who are not compliant with the law. In particular, the selection criteria for new accounting officers was based on the Auditor General’s report of financial year 2012/13 of yet the law requires that the financial year 2013/14 report to be used for this purpose,” she said.

Role of secretary to treasury
President Museveni assented to the Public Finance Management Act 2015 on March 23 this year.
The law provides for the role of accounting officers to establish accounting standards as well as the role of the minister and the Secretary to the treasury in the budgeting process.

According to the Public Finnance Management Act 2015, one of the functions of the Secretary to the Treasury is to “appoint or designate accounting officers in accordance with this Act, except that the Secretary to the Treasury shall not appoint or designate a person an accounting officer where, according to the report of an Internal Auditor General or the Auditor-General, that person has not accounted for the public resources or assets of the vote for a financial year.”

ekasozi@ug.nationmedia.com