Museveni asked for five months’ salary advance after 2016 elections

President Museveni asked for a five months’ salary advance, soon after the 2016 general election.
In honour of his request, State House released a total of Shs19.1 million off its budget for the financial year 2016-2017.

This was uncovered as a team from State House interfaced with the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament Tuesday. The committee is scrutinizing queries raised by the Auditor General, in his report for the financial year ending June 2018.

During the year, the Office of the President received Shs126.8 billion but used only Shs125.7 billion. The balance of Shs1.1 billion was returned to the treasury.

But State House officials told the committee that part of the money that was returned to the treasury was recovered from President Museveni who had asked for a salary advance in the previous financial year 2016/2017. The rest was saved after deleting from the payroll, a list of pensioners who couldn’t be accounted for after a joint verification exercise conducted by the Office of the President and Ministry of Public Service.

Mr Yunus Kakande, a Secretary in the office of the President, said Mr Museveni asked for a salary advance prompting them to seek a supplementary budget from which they funded the Shs19 million. Mr Kakande said this money was, however, recovered in the financial year 2017/2018 and returned to the treasury.
Mr Museveni reportedly earns a monthly salary of Shs3.6 million.

The request for an advance came soon after the 2016 General election which Mr Museveni won with a 61 per cent margin to retain the presidential seat. The Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament, Mr Nathan Nandala Mafabi said the legislators were crosschecking if Mr Museveni is listed as one of the debtors in the 2016/2017 records.

But Maruzi County MP Maxwell Akora wondered if Public servants can be granted advances and if an advance that goes as far as five months, is acceptable.

The President’s team said that was the only advance President Museveni has requested for and received after following procedures of alerting the Permanent Secretary Ministry of Finance, among others.