Africa-Press – Uganda. A special probe by the Parliament’s Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE) has faulted Minister for Presidency Milly Babalanda for the mess at the Uganda Printing and Publishing Corporation (UPPC).
The lawmakers want the minister punished on account of new findings by the Auditor General as tabled on Tuesday evening pinning the minister for failures at the UPPC.
“By failing to appoint the board over a long period of time, the Minister failed to exercise the powers conferred upon her under Section 6(1) of the UPPC Act,” the report reads in part.
“The absence of the board for long grossly affected the operations of the board as there was no sufficient supervision of staff,” the report said.
COSASE, chaired by the Nakawa West MP Joel Ssenyonyi reasoned that this obstructed work at the UPPC, let alone the Minister illegally taking up and executing the duties that would otherwise be executed by the board. These included signing off documents and statements that would otherwise be done by the UPPC leadership.
“While the Minister has powers to appoint the board, there is no legal basis for her to assume the roles of the board, such as the appointment of staff. For example, on two occasions, she appointed the acting managing director,” Ssenyonyi told Parliament as he read the report.
He added: “She also kept signing off documents including audited financial statements as the board chairperson of UPPC, which was both irregular and illegal.”
Genesis
The report reveals that UPPC was devoid of a functional board of directors at the time when the Auditor General John Muwanga’s office instituted the audit, contrary to Section 6(1) of the UPPC Act, 1992.
The absence of the requisite board had been occasioned by a decision by the minister for presidency who premised on intel from a whistleblower and dismissed the board members on August 23, 2021 for allegedly engaging in corruption. The intel reached the minister on August 16, 2021. This was meant to create room for investigations which commenced on August 16th, 2021.
After the board chairperson was swiftly dismissed, the line minister appointed James Tweheyo to serve as the Acting Manager Director.
In March this year, when she interfaced with the MPs on COSASE, Babalanda revealed that she had appointed a new board whose names had been vetted by the government security agencies.
These included Joachim Buwembo, Sadat Kisuyi, Jolly Kamugura Kaguhangire and Alice N.K Muhoozi. The others were Hellen Judith Icumar, Jimmy Katugaba and Nooh Bukenya.
Other findings
The committee also found that one of the UPPC staff was credited a Shs1.54 billion commission cut which was 10 per cent of the Shs15.4 billion of the payments made by the Uganda Electoral Commission for gazzetting information, as legally required by the UPPC.
“There was no basis for payment of the commission. By paying Shs1.54 billion to a commission agent, the responsible officers at UPPC caused a financial loss to the entity,” the report reads in part.
It therefore ruled that “the commission agent who received the commission of Shs15.4billion and should refund it to the corporation within three (3) months from the date of adoption of this report.”
Meanwhile, whereas the entity is legally mandated to have a total of 120 staff, “only 69 were filled representing 57.5 per cent, thereby leaving a gap of 51 staff.”
Parliament wants these gaps closed within six months.
Additionally, “it was noted that whereas the Tax records as per the Uganda Revenue Authority, revealed a tax liability amount of over Shs1.6 billion, the Financial Statements disclosed only Shs1.14 billion, resulting in a variance of Shs460,846,314.”
To this effect, MPs recommended that the UPPC “accounting Officer should put in place mechanisms to ensure that the books of accounts present a fair reflection of the tax liability of the corporation in the subsequent financial years.”
Take responsibility
Butambala Woman MP Aisha Kabanda recommended that “the minister should take responsibility” of the UPPC mess.
Her position was also supported by the Oyam Woman MP Santa Olum who said: “We know the work of UPPC is very crucial as far as printing security documents is concerned but for our cooperation to stay two years without a board and in the middle, somebody is appointed to act on behalf of the board, this has a lot.”
Kabanda also added that: “I would like the minister also to take up political responsibility because in these two years, we lost a lot of money.”
Govt promises action
Whereas Minister Babalanda was not in Parliament at the time when the report was tabled, the third deputy Prime Minister Rukia Nakadama promised that the recommendations in Parliament would “be scrutinized by government and report to Parliament within 6 months.
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