Auditor General John Muwanga with Assistant Auditor General-Corporate Services, Francis Masuba presenting their policy statement before Finance Committee Chairperson Henry Musasizi.
Parliament has approved extra 7 billion shillings to the Office of
the Auditor General-OAG to carter for forensics, specialized and school audits.
The approval came after the adoption of parliament’s Finance
Committee report on the Finance Sector Ministerial Policy Statement for the
coming financial year 2019/2020. Rubanda East MP Henry Musasizi presented the
report to the plenary session Chaired by Deputy Speaker Jacob Oulanyah.
Auditor General John Muwanga last month appeared before the committee and
indicated a budgetary allocation of 59.9 billion shillings in the next financial
year out of the required 68.8 billion leaving them with a funding gap of 8.92
billion shillings.
Out of the required additional 8.92 billion, the Auditor General required 3.23
billion to carry out audit of schools and tertiary institutions, 846 million
for Forensic and Specialized audits, 2.06 billion for Management Information
System (MIS) project recurrent costs, 1.73 billion for international relations
and 1 billion for capacity building.
While presenting the Finance Committee report to parliament,
Musasizi recommended that Shillings 3 billion be reallocated from Treasury
Operations to the Office of the Auditor General to enable the office to regularly
audits in Schools, Tertiary Institutions and audit of Treasury Memoranda.
“The AG is required by law, to audit and report on all public accounts of
Uganda and of all public offices. However, due to inadequate funding, the
office is unable to cover its entire audit population particularly Tertiary
institutions and schools resulting in accumulation of backlogs. In addition,
the ever-expanding audit scope caused by the creation of new entities means
that the office needs additional resources to effectively fulfill its
constitutional mandate,” read part of Musasizi’s report.
In the coming financial year, the Auditor General has 925 audits of schools and
tertiary institutions which had been left without funding. The committee also
recommended that government provides the required 846 billion shillings to
conduct forensics and specialized audits.
Musasizi noted that increasing demand for Value for Money audits investigations,
the Auditor General requires funds to execute 10 forensic audit investigations,
2 Value for Money audits and public works audits in 5 entities.
He said that this is in line with the new Office of the Auditor
General policy on undertaking high impact audits, the Integrated Audit
Approach, alignment of audit work to SDGs and stakeholder emphasis on
performance audits.
Also provided, is 2 billion shillings to be re-allocated from Treasury
Operations under Court Awards to enable OAG maintain the Management Information
System. Musasizi said that the money is to carter for operationalization of the
Project Management Office, subscription payments for software licenses, data
and internet costs, renting of NITA (U) facilities, change management
activities, stakeholder sensitization and user training costs.
Parliament also provided the Auditor General with Shillings 1.043 billion to
build capacity of the staff to conduct specialized audits.
“In view of the ever increasing demand for quality audits and the newly
established support function the office needs to respond by training staff in
financial audits, emerging specialized audit areas and other technical skills,”
said Musasizi.
In the coming financial year, the Office of the Auditor General plans to build
staff capacity in various specialized areas of audit such as Public Private Partnerships,
Oil and Gas, International Taxation, Domestic Revenue, Forensic Investigations,
IT systems audit, Impact evaluations and Illicit financial flows.
Musasizi argued that these are high impact or interest areas that need funding
to effectively build capacity and make a positive contribution to National
priorities focused on these areas.
The report recommendations were adopted by parliament in its entirety with no
debate following a question by Deputy Speaker Jacob Oulanyah.
