PAC Orders West Nile Officials to Recover Government Motorcycles that were sold off
The Public Accounts Committee on Local Government has directed accounting officers in the West Nile region to recover money from officers who have submitted reports that indicate wasteful expenditure.
The directive follows an incident in Gulu Municipality where five Yamaha motorcycles that were allocated to technical staff to facilitate service delivery disappeared.
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On 5th July 2018, the Public Accounts Committee chaired by Aswa County Member of Parliament Reagan Okumu Member of Parliament representing Aswa County, summoned Accounting Officers from Arua Audit Region to clarify on quarries raised in the Auditor General's reports for the financial year ended 30th June 2017.
This followed reports that over five brand new Yamaha motorcycles that were given to Gulu municipality technical staff to ease service delivery disappeared and their whereabouts are unknown.
‘’We would like the accounting officer to institute measures and inform this committee the whereabouts of the five motorcycles within two month from now. ‘’ ‘‘Said Reagan Okumu chairperson PAC.’’
The Yamaha motorcycles each valued at 14 million shillings had been distributed to different departments.
Okumu rubbished claims that these motorcycles had all been stolen in period of less than a year. Okumu said that he hoped that the accounting officer on duty was not involved in the theft of the five motorcycles.
The Arua Municipal Council Town Clerk Jamil Kairu who is less than a year in the job, blamed the mess the former accounting officers.
Kairu claimed that, “By the time I came to Arua Municipal council, I heard about this issue and immediately I instructed the auditor to investigate it.’’
Reports say that the motorcycles could have been stolen and taken to South Sudan and DR Congo, which are considered safe havens for stolen vehicles and motorcycles.
‘’These motorcycles that are being stolen are taken to DR Congo by the staff officials and they pretended having been stolen.’’ Sam Byibesho, MP Kisoro Municipality said.
Kairu also admitted that some municipality staff had opened a false bank account where they were depositing revenue collections and by the time he became aware of it, there was over five million shillings on the account.
The Town clerk added that the fraudsters disappeared once they realized that the false account had been unearthed.
An analysis by the Report of the Auditor General for Arua District Local government for the financial year ended 30th June 2017 revealed that out of 764 billion Uganda shillings advanced to youth projects; only 150 billion reached the beneficiaries, accounting for only 20 percent.
Arua District Accounting Officer Onhengel Ismael admitted that recovery of the youth fund has been a big problem.
Some whistle blowers revealed to the Committee that most beneficiaries of the youth funds in West Nile region were Congolese who crossed back to DRC through the porous border after receiving the money.
