By Aggrey Baba
Officials from the Ministry of Defence and Veteran Affairs (MODVA) on Friday found themselves sweating before Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) as MPs cornered the ministry’s Head of Accounts, Mubaraka Nsamba, over questionable treatment and movement of public funds.
The officials appeared before PAC, chaired by Patrick Oshabe Nsamba, the NUP MP for Kassanda County North, as Parliament examined financial queries arising from the MODVA’s accounts and pressed the accounting team to explain how billions of money appropriated by Parliament had been spent and classified.
The heat largely fell on Mubaraka, who struggled to convince PAC that the ministry had acted within the law when it moved expenditure originally provided for capital development into goods and services. Full recording of the COSASE proceedings can be accessed via this YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5emXAwPNUrQ & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoCbl9bTltM&t=61s
At the centre of the interrogation was about UGX24 billion which the ministry had voted under capital items but eventually treated differently because, according to the Head of Accounts, the expenditure did not result in the creation of new assets.
His explanation, however, only appeared to deepen the committee’s concerns, with MPs questioning why the ministry would take money Parliament had specifically allocated for capital development and then use it for maintenance.
The unconvinced MPs insisted that this was not merely a question of accounting treatment but a question of whether MODVA had the legal authority to channel the funds approved by Parliament.
Mubaraka Nsambas maintained that the ministry had spent the money on the same general purpose for which it had been allocated and that the classification was a professional accounting matter.
But the committee was not buying his explanation. The PAC members reminded the accounting team that Parliament appropriates money for specific purposes and that an accounting officer cannot simply decide to vary expenditure because they believe another treatment is professionally appropriate.
The committee further put Section 21 of the Public Finance Management Act to the officials, questioning whether the ministry had obtained the required authority from the responsible authorities before making the changes. Mubaraka maintained that MODVA had not broken any law because the money was still spent on the intended buildings and related works.
But the MPs pushed back, demanding to know which law gave the ministry powers to make such changes.
The committee chairman Patrick Nsamba bluntly told him that government entities must operate according to what the law provides, not merely according to their established accounting practice.
The grilling became particularly uncomfortable when the committee questioned whether the ministry was effectively hiding behind accounting treatment to justify what was, in reality, a movement of money between budget lines.
Mubaraka continued to defend the ministry’s position, explaining that the expenditure was properly treated according to the nature of the work eventually undertaken. On this, the MPs insisted that the ministry needed to show them the legal authority under which it had made the changes.
The MPs were particularly interested in knowing whether Parliament had authorized the spending in that manner.
They made it clear that they were not interested in being taken through complicated accounting language when the fundamental issue was whether money appropriated by Parliament had been spent in accordance with the appropriation. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
