Yasiin Mugerwa
5 November 2008
Kampala — At least Shs4 billion worth of taxpayers' money meant to facilitate Uganda's missions abroad was abused by a host of ambassadors, MPs heard yesterday.
At a stormy Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee meeting with the Foreign Affairs Ministry, some ambassadors who had appeared to defend themselves were put to task to explain the alleged role in the gross abuse of public funds. "We are talking about $2 million (Shs4 billion) that was either directly stolen or abused for personal benefit by these ambassadors," Mr Nandala Mafabi (Budadiri West) the committee chairperson said.
"In one financial year alone, these ambassadors were illegally paying themselves using public funds, yet others forged accountabilities, connived with officials in Kampala to abuse public funds with impunity."
The funds under investigations were abused in financial year 2003/04, where the Auditor General findings indicated that ambassadors were involved in swindling public funds through excess expenditure, inflated costs, misuse of rent collections and forgery related concerns.
Ambassador James Mugume, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs struggled to explain the anomaly, insisting that the Ministry has since streamlined the financial management within various missions cross the world.
"Staffing and lack of skills has been part of the problem but we are working on it. We have already embarked on a process that will help us strengthen the financial management as we continue with training," Mr Mugume said.
Ambassador Rhodah Kaisho, one of the culprits came under fire to explain a series of misdeeds involving financial impropriety under her watch at the Ugandan Embassy in Paris.
"The Appropriation Account shows that the mission over spent by a total of Shs235m without authority," the AG report reads in part. "The difference of Shs233.4 million was not properly accounted for and could have been utilized at source without authority."
In her response, Ambassador Kaisho told the Committee that while in Paris, she was using her own savings to run Mission work, as the embassy was getting inadequate funds from Kampala.
Ambassador Julius Onen, the former Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was held responsible for the alleged mismanagement of public funds in question. For instance, the Committee singled out one particular incident in which the former PS instructed Ambassador Joseph Kahiigwa, the former envoy in Brussels to bank $30,000 on a special account in Bank of Baroda.
However, according to the Committee it was irregular for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to ask funds from Brussels without authority from the Secretary to the Treasury and instituted a probe into what has been described as a financial scandal.
"This money is going to be refunded," Mr Mafabi said. "No wonder our missions are rotting when our money is just being misused. It was wrong for the ministry to demand money from Missions and we have several cases to this effect."
The Committee, however, insists that Ambassador Onen, the former accounting officer should appear before the Committee to explain the missing funds amounting in question.
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