2 November 2009
editorial
Kampala — HIRING a BMW 5 series car for eight days in the UK under the AVIS Prestige programme costs 700 euro. Hiring the same car for CHOGM in Kampala cost 16,000 euro; and 22,000 euro including transport cost.
For all 114 executive cars, one would have paid 80,000 euro in the UK, as opposed to 2.5m euro paid in Uganda.
It shows the extent to which CHOGM funds have been mismanaged.
Who is responsible? Is it the ministers? The permanent secretaries? The Cabinet sub-committee?
The danger is that in the end, nobody will take responsibility. Everybody will attribute the inflated prices to the urgency, and the market rules of supply and demand.
The Auditor General's reports, however, indicate that the last minute rush was a deliberate move to push up the prices and circumvent procurement rules.
There was no need for a crisis. The decision to hold CHOGM in Uganda was taken in Malta two years earlier.
In the case of the CHOGM cars, the finance ministry long in advance warned of the danger of delaying procurement.
In a letter of September 20, 2006 to the works ministry, Keith Muhakanizi, the Deputy Secretary to the Treasury, wrote: "I would not like to envisage a situation where we are put in a tight corner to provide for CHOGM transport services exorbitantly as a crisis when we have all the time to get the service at reasonable, least cost options."
He was reacting to a request by the works ministry for sh50b for CHOGM transport requirements, as opposed to a budget allocation of sh9b.
It took the ministry another eight months to decide on a supplier. As a result, the Government ended up paying sh23b for transport, and hiring BMW cars at 22,000 euro each.
The Auditor General did a great job pointing out the flaws and irregularities. Let Parliament now establish who was responsible.
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