The Finance Committee has pinned the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) over unaudited accounts of classified expenditures, amounting Shs6.8 trillion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0Lawmakers who were receiving the 2022\/2023 budget of the OAG from the Auditor General, John Muwanga on 24 January 2022, also accused the audit body of neglecting other heavily funded entities including oil companies and the infrastructure sector. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hon Muwanga Kivumbi (NUP, Butambala County) said that Parliament relies on the Auditor General to scrutinise the expenditure of Ministry of Defence since it is a classified budget.\u00a0
\u201cYou have differed audits totaling Shs5 trillion and yet you are going to districts where there is no money,\u201d said Muwanga Kivumbi.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He added that focus should be directed to oil companies, saying that government is spending colossal sums of money on Production Sharing Agreements.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOil companies have not been audited since 2011. These companies are heaping government with all manners of loans and yet we are not seeing value for money,\u201d Muwanga Kivumbi said.\u00a0
Committee Vice-Chairperson, Hon Jane Pacuto said that continued failure to audit huge government expenditures leaves Ugandans hopeless.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cUnder classified audits, you had planned to do 13 but you have carried out only 3. What hope do you give the country that you are capable of auditing? Is it that you do not have the capacity or resources? Tell us so that we can support you,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hon \u00a0Moses Aleper urged (NRM, Chekwi County) the OAG to shift from carrying out financial audits to auditing for value for money, arguing that this will ensure that MDAss spend wisely.\u00a0
\u201cThis is in line with the new programme based budgeting whose objective is value for money,\u201d said Aleper adding that, \u2018emphasis should be put on implementation of recommendations so that you can ably report on the outcome of the audit\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Committee Chair, Hon Kiwanuka Keefa questioned the criteria the audit body uses to select agencies to be audited.\u00a0
\u201cWith the limited resources, how do you determine the agencies to be audited in a given financial year?\u201d wondered Kiwanuka.
\u00a0
Hon Herbert Tayebwa (NRM, Kashongi County) tasked the Auditor General to justify why the OAG should not be disbanded saying that despite the body\u2019s existence, corruption is on the rise. \u00a0
\u201cOffice of the Auditor General should be able to track budget implementation and discover any mischarges but because they connive with Ministries, Departments and Agencies to conceal corruption, they cannot,\u201d Tayebwa said.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hon Paul Omara (Indep., Otuke County) however, blamed the challenges in the OAG on insufficient budgets saying that majority of the differed audits are a result of budget shortfalls. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Assistant Director Audit, in charge energy, Bob Godwin Mande attributed the slow progress in auditing of oil companies to the legal frameworks which provide for back and forth negotiations.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe have so far audited Production Sharing Agreements for 2015 and we have recoverable amount for Uganda of US$29 billion. We also have first management letters for the agreements audited for the years, 2016 and 2019. At the end of this year, we shall update the 2018 audit on the PSA and start with that of 2020,\u201d he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Assistant Auditor General, Steven Katerega informed the MPs said that all infrastructure projects under Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) and Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) are audited annually.\u00a0
\u201cThese entities are audited on value for money and not financial audits because they are allocated huge budgets,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He however, told the MPs that OAG requires an additional Shs16 billion next financial year to audit the energy and infrastructure sector.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere is demand to critically focus on the energy and infrastructure sectors and yet the funds allocated might not enable us audit those sectors,\u201d Katerega said.
In the 2022\/2023 FY, the OAG has been allocated Shs67<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Finance Committee has pinned the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) over unaudited accounts of classified expenditures, amounting Shs6.8 trillion. \u00a0Lawmakers who were receiving the 2022\/2023 budget of the OAG from the Auditor General, John Muwanga on 24 January 2022, also accused the audit body of neglecting other heavily funded entities including oil companies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27983,"featured_media":28487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_paywall_metabox":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[31],"class_list":["post-28486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-featured"],"yoast_head":"\n