PAC orders Police to pick up Tourism ministry PS from home
The parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has ordered Police attached to Parliament to pick up Tourism ministry permanent secretary Doreen Katusiime from her home.
Angry legislators on the public oversight committee say they have had enough of Ms Katusiime's habitual refusal to respond to accountability queries.
They say the PS is always delegating her juniors in the ministry.
“This is a habitual person in terms of dodging Parliament and accountability committees and I have looked through the file, and because of her behaviour, the committee has been forced to consider the report without her appearance and she is back at it again, same trick, same personality,” said PAC chairperson Muwanga Kivumbi.
PAC was told that Katusiime took her annual leave a few days to the scheduled meeting with Parliament.
But Clerk to Committee revealed that a similar excuse was tendered in by the Ms Katusiime in the previous audit cycle.
It is upon these revelations that Kivumbi was forced to issue a summons for the arrest of Katusiime.
“Do you know where the accounting officer lives?" he asked the detectives attached to Parliament.
"I am going to give her criminal summons, CID, you accompany the Undersecretary, go to her home and bring her here. This business of wasting our time will not be tolerated.
"That is the way you have been behaving, I will not get you off. There is nothing you are going to say, you did it deliberate"
The committee continued to audit the entity even in the absence of the permanent secretary.
Meanwhile, Police said they failed to trace the whereabouts of Katusiime, but PAC was not about to relent, instead the committee issued fresh summons requiring her to appear before the MPs on March 19.
“You recall we suspended the meeting and summoned the permanent secretary to appear, the Criminal Investigations Directorate is having difficulty tracing her, and the time we had set had elapsed, we want to extend the same summons to Tuesday March 19 at 3pm, the CID is thereby directed,” Kivumbi said.
