BY MUBARAK HASSAN MUHENDA
Both the Speaker of Parliament Ms Annet Anita Among and Mr Joel Ssenyonyi Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE) have locked-horns over failure to report on the Auditor General’s report.
Ms Among during the Wednesday plenary sitting lashed at COSASE chaired by Mr Ssenyonyi over what she termed as disappointment with the committee for the bad performance as far as examining the reports and audited accounts of public entities is concerned.
“Article 163(5) of the Constitution gives Parliament six months after the submission of the Auditor General’s report to debate and consider the report and take appropriate action. The period has elapsed and COSASE has only handled 4 entities out of the 107 required. Shame on COSASE,” she said.
Rule 145 (2) of the Rules of Procedure require the submission of reports of sectoral committees on the National Budget Framework Paper, to the Budget Committee by the 20th day of January.
In response, through his official twitter account, Mr Ssenyonyi expressed his concern why the speaker has blocked the report of Uganda Airlines from being tabled on the floor of parliament.
“Imagine! Anyhow, still waiting for the delivered reports to be given space on Parliaments order paper,” Ssenyonyi tweeted.
However, during the same plenary session Ssenyonyi appreciated the speaker for her guidance and accepted that as committees, they are supposed to be doing more than what they are doing so far.
COSASE Chairperson Ssenyonyi went ahead and presented a committee report of the Auditor General on Uganda National Roads Authority(UNRA) for FY 2020/2021 which observed that UNRA never implemented several planned activities despite receiving all that they required for execution.
Some of these activities were, Procurement of rescue and support under the improvement of ferry services, Civil works for the construction of UNRA offices, construction of 10km equivalents along Karugutu-Ntoroko and Kabwoya-Buhuka road, construction of 10km equivalents along Reenkunye-Apac-Lira-Acholibur Road among others.
Ssenyonyi also said that as UNRA blamed poor implementation of activities on inadequate funding, Shs227.4bn was not spent as the justified amount to the entity.
