By John V Sserwaniko
Today Monday, hundreds of district internal auditors and chairpersons of Local Government Public Accounts Committees (LGPAC) converged at Hotel Africana to attend a consultative meeting that Local Government Ministry PS Ben Kumumanya organized for them. Organized with financial support of the UK and US government (DFID & USAID) under the GAPP program, the one-day meeting saw the LG officials interact with many leaders from the Central Government including those from the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) and that of Internal Auditor General. The most exciting one was the session during which the Assistant Auditor General Keto Kayemba addressed the LG officials specifically on common areas of weakness and general findings often made by the OAG. In a brief powerful presentation, Keto Focused them on areas of accountability and financial management where they have a lot of improvement to make. On the general things, Keto took them through the different types of audit opinions. She explained to them the implications of an entity being given unqualified, qualified, adverse and disclaimer audit opinion. Whereas qualified opinion means the entity is doing very poorly regarding financial reporting, unqualified opinion is clearance implying that the entity is doing very well in as far as the OAG is concerned. She commended the LG leaders because the other two types of audit opinions are very rare and would represent very extreme circumstances. She commended them also for the support they extended to her audit teams as they carried out the most recent special audit on the performance of Mzee Pius Bigirimana’s Youth Livelihood Program (YLP). She bragged that as a result of their report, gaps were identified and are currently being addressed. From the auditing perspective, Keto highlighted for them LG-based GoU programs that are doing well including the Uganda Road Fund (URF) intervention. She challenged them to always read and understand the AG’s annual reports and be able to advise on what policy interventions need to be undertaken to improve government performance and service delivery. She was intrigued with the fact that the LGs’ revenue collection performance had dropped from Shs14.4bn (in FY2016/17) to mere Shs7.4bn in the FY2017/18.
The different photo moments of Assistant AG Keto Kayemba at the Monday MLoG meeting at Hotel Africana
She said this is one area the LG officials can make pragmatic proposals on how that area can be improved. Responding to that aspect of her presentation, the LG officials blamed such decline in revenue on the Central Government interference into their revenue-generating activities. They for instance were unanimous in castigating government’s decision to re-centralize the collection of fees payable by buses, taxis and other passenger service vehicles operating in parks situated in their respective districts. At that point, MLoG PS Kumumanya weighed in and asked them not to waste time giving their views on such a policy because it was passed by Cabinet on the justification that their own financial impropriety (in connivance with tenderers) was causing lots of financial loss to the government. Keto told them about the need to prepare someday to explain why annually an average of Shs1.4bn goes unaccounted for in the LG sub sector. She told them things like mischarges of expenditure and failing to account for money must be avoided because they had service delivery depriving the public. She said in the last FY alone, Shs1.5bn was lost in the Local Governments because of mismatched expenditures. She said mismatching expenditures is a form of financial diversion which (just like getting qualified audit opinions) can negatively influence the PSST’s decision in the subsequent year when deploying accounting officers. Consensus at the meeting was that cases of mismatched expenditures are very common with agencies like UNRA.
THE REACTIONS
During the question and answer session, the LG officials raised many grievances to Keto including demanding that disciplinary action must be taken against OAG staff/external auditors who seek bribes and other forms of financial gratifications during the auditing process. One of the Internal Auditors claimed that besides soliciting for kickbacks in return for favorable audit reporting, some of the OAG staff sometimes connive with some CAOs to have LGs’ money expended under the guise of paying for their accommodation while upcountry as if they are never facilitated from Kampala. Appearing to be appalled by these shocking revelations, Keto referred to the OAG’s well-stated core values and principles which emphasize integrity and zero tolerance to corruption. She immediately read out her personal phone number and that of her boss John Muwanga and implored the LG officials to directly report any acts of bribe-solicitation for remedial action to be taken. “But we sometimes have to be very careful because my staff are often victims of blackmail and malicious accusations by people in the entities they are sent out to audit. Sometimes we are misrepresented by conmen and middlemen who come to you when the audit is about to start and require you to fundraise on behalf of the OAG yet in actual sense we don’t even know those people,” she explained referring to a recent incident when the heads of a targeted entity called them to raise a red flag. “The government had just announced a special audit and we hadn’t even drafted the terms of reference but someone had already gone to them asking for money and purporting to act on our behalf.” For comments, call, text or whatsapp us on 0703164755.
