UTL audit starts
UTL headquarters in Kampala
Officials from the Internal Audit department in the Finance Ministry, have started auditing the operations of at Uganda Telecom Company (LTD), following a directive by President Yoweri Museveni to the State Minister for Investment, Ms Evelyn Anite that she constitutes a team to audit the firm.
The Register General at the Uganda Registration Services Bureau, Mr Twebaze Bemanya, the Attorney General, the Auditor General and other government officials had put up a spirited fight to block the audit of the telecom company, saying that the law doesn’t allow its audit.
Mr Twebaze is the administrator of UTL.
However, the proponents of audit have had the last laugh.
In a letter dated July 25, 2019 to the Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, Mr Matia Kasaija, Ms Anite said the audit has already commenced and a report will be presented in a month’s period.
“I have in effect directed Internal Auditor General to audit UTL and provide a report within one month. As always, I count on your support to seamlessly implement the directive of H.E the President that is already in motion,” Ms Anite wrote.
Nothing new
Ms Anite said the objections raised by the Attorney General are not new and that following a directive by the president, the audit work is already ongoing.
“The comments raised by the Attorney General regarding Uganda Telecom Audit in Ref ADM/31/197/01 are indeed not new. As conceded by the AG, they are same comments contained in their APM/202/04 of June 28th 2019 and ADM181/01 of July 1st 2019 correspondences,” Ms Anite said.
Ms Anite said the Attorney General has continued to recycle the same arguments even when the president has insisted that the audit be carried out to verify the claims of mismanagement at the struggling telecom company.
She wrote: “Note that these correspondences (ADM/202/04 and ADM 181/01) from AG were copied to H.E the President. Nevertheless, the HE the President directed me on July 16th 2019 (PO/10) to go ahead and audit UTL. The President further indicated that he heard allegations about UTL that require to be cleared or not by an audit.”
For the larger part of last year and half of this year, UTL has been embroiled in altercations between government officials.
Ms Anite as well as Mr Museveni want the company audited, while a team from the administrator general, backed by the Attorney General and the Auditor General are opposed to the audit.
