Trade ministry, MPs lock horns over Shs5b budget

The fallout from how a Shs5 billion supplementary budget allocated to the Ministry of Trade, Industries and Cooperatives during the financial year 2021/2022 was expended has spotlighted the government’s decision-making process.

The bone of contention is the decision by the ministry’s top accounting officer to spruce up its tumbledown office space at Farmer’s House on Parliamentary Avenue. 

Ms Geraldine Ssali, the ministry’s permanent secretary (PS), opted against using the subvention to rent office space at Kingdom Kampala on Nile Avenue.

While meeting the parliamentary committee on trade, tourism and industry last week, Ms Susan Amero (Amuria District Woman MP) told Ms Ssali that she went “against the decision of Parliament which approved that money for rent.”

Monitor understands that the money in question was meant to top up with other funds that the government would have to forage in the normal budgeting process to cater for rent at Kingdom Kampala. Annually this would cost taxpayers at least Shs8 billion.

We have also established that the ministry’s monthly rent at Farmer’s House is Shs11.8m. Renovation of the building occupied by the ministry would on the one hand cost Shs6 billion as a one-off cost. On the other hand, according to the previous plan the ministry had sought to occupy about 5,000 square metres at Kingdom Kampala. The premise’s management, according to documents, quoted Shs84,731 per square metre, translating into Shs423m monthly and Shs5 billion annually.

Numbers game
It is this numbers game that Ms Ssali had to consider when she was appointed PS of the ministry in July of 2021. The ministry had gone slightly over two years without a substantive PS after Ambassador Julius Onen died on March 10, 2019. Ambassador Onen had held the office since 2009.

“When I joined the ministry [in August 2021], I found when there was a discussion on moving to rent. And the whole objective I found out was that the premises we have at the moment were not good enough for the environment of staff,” Ms Ssali told Saturday Monitor, adding:

“Of course, I agree because it was leaking. But it is the trade which was actually acquired in 1964 by the cooperators themselves. We are the ministry in-charge of Cooperatives.”

The virement that Ms Ssali oversaw in 2022 when she opted for the option of renovation over renting preoccupied lawmakers last week when Trade ministry officials presented their ministerial policy statement. Virement is the process of transferring items from one financial account to another.

“The Trade ministry sat and planned to shift and rent. Were you part of that planning meeting to shift or did you find something that was there that you thought was wrong and you decided to reverse it?” Mr Mwine Mpaka, the Trade committee chairperson, who doubles as  Mbarara City South lawmaker, asked.

Ms Ssali told the parliamentary committee that “handover notes from the previous accounting officer” did not make the relocation to Kingdom Kampala mandatory. 

She also described as “obnoxious” the rate for the property at Nile Avenue. It was, she added: “Not affordable at all by [the] government” as the wails of government entities renting space at Kingdom Kampala attest.

“So we revisited the options,” the Trade ministry PS revealed.

PSST okays virement
In a May 20, 2022, letter addressed to Mr Ramathan Ggoobi, Ms Ssali sought clearance to re-channel the Shs5 billion to facilitate renovation of her ministry’s office. Mr Ggoobi, the Finance ministry permanent secretary and secretary to the treasury (PSST), authorised the virement in a June 2 response.

“Given that renovation of the existing government offices at Farmer’s House is more cost effective in the long run, pursuant to Section 14, subsection 7 of the Public Finance Management Regulations, 2016, this is, therefore, to authorise you to change your work plan to enable you to utilise above funds for renovation of the ministry’s premises as requested,” Mr Ggoobi wrote.

Earlier, in November of 2021, Ms Sali wrote to the Works ministry seeking Bills of quantities and structural integrity report to facilitate the renovation of Farmer’s House. 

A team from the same ministry had earlier furnished her with technical guidance in compliance with standards of the said premises.

Before the request could be effected, the Works ministry through the Assistant Commissioner of Electrical Engineering, Mr Jude Clement Kidega, wrote back on January 17, 2022, requesting for facilitation that would enable its team execute the assignment.

Consequently, officials from the department of structures at the Works ministry and representatives from the Trade ministry agreed that a team of engineers from Makerere University led by Ms Hidaya Namakula would undertake the mandate of assessing the facility. This was to be done at Shs18.43m.

Repair job
Key among the aspects that were assessed, included checks on the foundation, columns, slab, load bearing walls and shear walls. Assessment was also done on beams as well as the roof.

Consequently, Ms Ssali sought clearance from the Solicitor General in a June 10, 2022 letter.
“The [Trade] ministry intends to enter into a contract with M/s Sarick Construction Limited to Provide Repair and Renovation of Properties (Office Space at Farmer’s House),” Ms Ssali’s letter reads in part.

Last Wednesday, Ms Ssali told MPs that two topmost floors of the said facility were nearing completion of the renovation process before office furniture could be shifted to accommodate staff.

“In the very beginning, we were given Shs5 billion, but in accounting language, rent is basically accommodation. The objective is to provide a good work environment for staff and occupants of a building so instead of incurring the costs of about Shs7 billion, I decided to renovate the traditional home of the cooperatives, Farmer’s House,” Ms Ssali told Monitor.

She added: “This building is government-owned. It is owned by Uganda Property Holdings Limited and they give us a very little charge of about Shs11.8m per month, which comes to about Shs330m a year.”

She proceeded to conclude that, in her assessment, “if you make such a saving for [the] government, it is a good thing and it should be supported by anybody who is a patriot or calls themselves a patriot.”