Prime
Ghost civil servants paid billions – report
Auditor General John Muwanga hands over his 2022/2023 annual report on how taxpayers’ money was spent to Speaker Anita Among at Parliament on January 9, 2023. PHOTO/DAVID LUBOWA
What you need to know:
- The audit of government accounts reveals extensive rot in public sector payroll management, and in the roll-out of the flagship rural wealth-creation initiative known as the Parish Development Model.
Last year’s manpower audit across government departments unearthed thousands of ghost civil servants hiding inside the public payroll system through whom billions of shillings are feared to have disappeared.
This troubling discovery came to light as Auditor General (AG) John Muwanga yesterday released his 2022/2023 annual report on how taxpayers’ money was spent, listing a litany of financial irregularities reported across government departments.
The audit of government accounts revealed extensive rot in public sector payroll management, and in the roll-out of the flagship rural wealth-creation initiative known as the Parish Development Model (PDM).
The audit
As he handed over the report to Speaker Anita Among, Mr Muwanga referred to the May 2023 civil service staff validation exercise commissioned by the Ministry of Public Service. The staff audit was carried out by the AG’s office to find out exactly how many people the government employs in the Public Service.
The exercise was authorised following years of complaints about the unclear public wage bill, with workers sometimes missing pay for months due to discrepancies in records.
Mr Muwanga reported that “6,307 [government] employees were either confirmed dead, absconded, or retired by the time of validation. Out of these, 2,483 employees were removed from the payroll in time, while 3,824 were not deleted promptly and as a result, Shs23.62 billion was irregularly paid to them after their exit date.”
His revelations also indicated that “1,818 individuals who were paid Shs0.56 billion (Shs560 million) in the base month alone (i.e February 2023), were non-existent and hence confirmed ghost employees. Payments made to these employees could have led to a potential annual financial loss of Shs6.7 billion to government.”
Revolving funds
It was also found that government only recovered a tiny fraction of money dished out through revolving funds under poverty eradication programmes, including the Youth Livelihood Programme (YLP) and the Uganda Women Entrepreneurship Programme (UWEP).
“Analysis of the performance of YLP and UWEP revealed that out of Shs237.03 billion recoverable, only Shs72 billion had been recovered as at 30th June 2023,” the report states.
The audit also found that some of 604 beneficiaries in 242 PDM Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies (Saccos) were ineligible for the loans.
“In 68 local governments, 604 beneficiaries in 242 PDM Saccos had implemented ineligible projects, while in 20 local governments, 53 beneficiaries in 44 PDM Saccos had non-existent projects,” the report adds, pointing to possible huge losses of public funds.
Separately, Mr Muwanga reported that Uganda now shoulders an unprecedented, all-time high public debt in excess of Shs96 trillion.
“The total public debt as of June 2023 stood at Shs96.1 trillion comprising of domestic stock of Shs43.6 trillion and external debt stock of Shs52.4 trillion. This represents an increase of Shs9.3 trillion equivalent to 10 percent compared to Shs86.8 trillion that was reported in 30th June 2022,” Mr Muwanga’s reported.
He further “noted that there has been a consistent increase in total debt as evidenced by an increase of 107 percent in the five years from 2018/2019 of Shs46 trillion to Shs96.1 trillion in the year ending 30th June 2023.”
It was found that “the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew from Shs132 trillion in 2018/2019 to Shs184 trillion in 2022/2023 in the same period thus representing an increase of 39.98 percent” and this therefore “implies that the public debt is growing at a higher rate than the GDP.”
Disturbingly, it was established that the government registered an under-utilisation of Shs5.82 trillion, thereby implying that there was no need for a supplementary budget.
The Director of Audit, Value for Money and Specialised Audits, Mr Anthony Kimuli, told yesterday’s meeting that “the under-utilisation was attributed to insufficient funds on the Consolidated Fund account; cancelled invoices; unimplemented activities by some of the ministries, departments, agencies and local governments, as well as late releases, among others.”
Mr Muwanga’s findings on the country’s soaring debt come at a time when government seems to be struggling to service the outstanding debt.
During the interface between Finance ministry mandarins and the House committee on Finance chaired by Mr Amos Kankunda, government reported that a whopping Shs23.4 trillion will be dedicated to servicing part of Uganda’s soaring public debt this year.
“…the projection for expenditure on external amortisation has increased because of huge principal repayments on Karuma Dam (Shs950 billion), Isimba Dam (Shs190 billion), Kabaale Airport (Shs241 billion), Afrexim budget support (Shs218 billion) Standard Bank of South Africa (Shs241 billion) TDA/PTA budget support (Shs365 billion),” the ministry told MPs.
Also, in the same submissions to Parliament, it was indicated that Shs247 billion will go towards settling part of $325 million (approximately Shs1.234 trillion) owed to the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in war reparations.
The $325 million stems from the 2001 UN report in which Uganda’s army (UPDF) was found guilty of plundering minerals, coffee, timber and livestock from the Congo during the late 1990s/early2000 war in that country. Consequently, Uganda government was ordered by the International Court of Justice to pay reparations amounting to $325 million.
As a stop gap measure, the Speaker advised that state authorities follow up on money invested into entities supervised by the government’s Uganda Development Cooperation so that dividends are realized, which can then go towards servicing the soaring national debt.
“A value for money audit must be done. We have put a lot of money into most of these institutions in the name of buying shares. We need to know how much money we have and what our money is doing. Let’s have this money audited,” Ms Among said.
The Speaker said an audit of enterprises where the government hold shares “will help us in ensuring that we now reduce the thirst of borrowing and spend within what we have.”
Among tasks Ssenyonyi
Minutes after she received the report, Speaker Among tasked the incoming Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, Mr Joel Ssenyonyi, who was present, to ensure the findings are expeditiously scrutinised.
“I want to request the Leader of the Opposition [in Parliament] that we are going to hand over these reports to you today and we pray that we receive reports within six months. Let’s not have any backlog and let’s not continue adopting reports which have not been scrutinised,” Ms Among said.
“It shows a vote of no confidence,” she said, “but I believe you will make sure things work out and that is why you are here. And this meeting is actually yours as Leader of the Opposition [in Parliament] because these are your reports.”
She, therefore, advised that Mr Ssenyonyi, who took on the LoP mantle last month, replacing Mr Mathias Mpuuga, convenes a meeting with leaders of accountability committees to immediately plan for the work ahead. Under the multiparty political dispensation, accountability committees are traditionally chaired by the Opposition in respect to the oversight function of Parliament.
Two hours after the 2022/2023 Auditor General report was received by Speaker Among, it was formally tabled on the floor of Parliament. It was then referred to the various accountability committees for further thorough scrutiny to inform recommendations to be contained in the susbequent committee reports for adoption the House.
The House committees expected to scrutinise the findings include; Public Accounts Committee-Central; Public Accounts Committee-Local Government and the Committee of Commissions Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises.
