Africa-Press – Uganda. Leaders from Apac District local government have been grilled for failing to detail what the district intended to use Shs2.3b that was returned to the Treasury.
In the Financial Year 2021/2022, the district received Shs18.8 billion from the Ministry of Finance but spent only Shs16.539 billion, representing 88 percent of the budget, while the rest was swept back to the Treasury.
The technical leaders led by Mr Geoffrey Okaka, the chief administrative officer, on Friday laboured explaining why they failed to utilise the funds while appearing before the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament.
The committee led by its chairperson, Mr Martin Ojara Mapenduzi, had asked the leaders to give reasons on why they could not utilise the funds in time.
“What caused this underperformance and what steps are being taken to see that the unspent balances that were swept back are reprogrammed and recovered?” Mr Ojara asked.
Mr Okaka, however, explained that the failure to absorb the funds resulted from the failure by the Public Service Ministry to authorise them to recruit staff in new seed schools, upgraded health centres and newly created lower local government administrative units.
“We have secondary schools in Apac where we failed to recruit teachers. We also asked for authority to recruit from Public Service, unfortunately, we were not given [a way forward]. We also had health centre IIs under the Uganda Intergovernmental Programme upgraded to Health Centre IIIs, meaning an increase in staffing, but we could not recruit,” Mr Okaka said.
While he said it was until a few months ago when the system was activated to allow them to recruit staff at the upgraded health centres, they failed to recruit staff in the new town councils of Ibuje, Akokoro and Teboke.
“We were unable to recruit staff to fill those gaps. In the case of the new seed schools, we don’t have any control over the deployment done by the Education Ministry. Once they deploy, we will work with these employees,” he added.
While the district allocated Shs221 million to pay additional staff that was to be added to the health centres upgraded from health centre II to III, it also allocated another Shs161 million for salaries of staff to be employed in the newly created town councils and sub-counties.
The explanations by the district technical team, however, were quickly trashed by the committee after they failed to share copies of budget documents.
“From your explanation, when you tally the figures and compare them to the Shs2.32 billion, it does not add up, we need documents of proof of what you are saying, you are not able to explain about the additional Shs1.2 billion,” Mr George Didi Bhoka, a committee member, stated.
The committee ordered Mr Okaka to submit documents in a fortnight so that they follow up on the matter with the Public Service and Education ministries.
Background
The committee arrived in Gulu City early last week to jointly investigate selected districts of Acholi, Langi and West Nile sub-regions following the report of the Auditor General on cross-cutting audit queries largely on the performance of salaries, gratuity and pensions by the entities for FY 2022/2022.
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