STELLA OKETCHO — Uganda's Parliament has, over the years, developed several standing committees that have stood out for the weight of the responsibilities entrusted to them. Among the most prominent are the Public Accounts Committee and the Committee on Public Accounts (Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises), commonly known as COSASE.
These committees sit at the centre of Parliament's accountability architecture.
COSASE, in particular, has a defined responsibility under Rule 187 of Parliament's Rules of Procedure: to examine the reports and audited accounts of statutory authorities, corporations and public enterprises and consider the recommendations of the Auditor General relating to those accounts. The committee is also required to report to Parliament within the prescribed period after an auditor general's report is referred to it.
It is therefore not simply another parliamentary committee. Its work is supposed to form part of a chain that begins with public expenditure and auditing, moves through parliamentary scrutiny and ultimately results in corrective action.
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Over the years, COSASE has also developed a political identity of its own, with its chairmanship traditionally going to the Opposition. The committee has passed through the leadership of figures including Abdu Katuntu, Mubarak Munyagwa and Joel Ssenyonyi, while the current 12th Parliament has placed Muwada Nkunyingi at its helm.
Today, COSASE is again under intense public attention. The committee has been examining issues at institutions including the Uganda Human Rights Commission and Uganda Civil Aviation Authority, while questions around Uganda Railways Corporation's financial performance and assets have also come under parliamentary scrutiny.
The long-running Temangalo question involving the National Social Security Fund has also returned to the parliamentary spotlight. There is therefore no shortage of work.
But amid the growing number of hearings, summonses and public confrontations, there is another question Uganda should be asking: Is Parliament getting better at investigating, or simply becoming more visible at investigating?
The appetite for accountability is welcome
First, the obvious needs to be said. There is nothing wrong with Parliament asking difficult questions. There is nothing wrong with an accounting officer being required to explain the use of public money. There is nothing wrong with Parliament revisiting problems that have persisted for years. And where an Auditor General's report raises questions about financial management, Parliament would be failing in its responsibility if it simply ignored them.
The current COSASE leadership has demonstrated an appetite for precisely this kind of scrutiny. In July, for example, the committee directed the Uganda Human Rights Commission chairperson to appear after she failed to attend a meeting examining the commission's Auditor General's report. Parliament subsequently reported concerns about governance at the institution, including the fact that the commission had not formally met since March.
At UCAA, COSASE halted proceedings after the substantive director general failed to appear, and the committee opted to proceed with an on-site inspection. These are legitimate accountability questions. But legitimate questions can still be pursued through methods that deserve scrutiny themselves. That is where the conversation needs to go.
The microphone cannot replace the expert
One of the biggest challenges facing parliamentary oversight is the technical complexity of the institutions being examined.
Consider the organisations that fall within COSASE's orbit. A railway corporation involves engineering, logistics, rolling-stock management, land administration, procurement, accounting and transport economics.
An aviation authority involves aviation safety, regulation, airport infrastructure, security, procurement and international standards. A pension fund involves investment management, actuarial considerations, property, finance, procurement and law.
A human rights commission operates within an entirely different constitutional and legal framework. Expecting elected legislators to personally master all these disciplines would be unreasonable. That is precisely why parliamentary committees require strong technical support.
An MP may be an excellent legislator without being an auditor. Another may be an accomplished lawyer without understanding railway asset management. Another may understand public administration without possessing the technical knowledge required to assess an engineering or aviation question.
The solution is not to weaken MPs. It is to strengthen the professionals supporting them.
The quality of the question matters as much as the question itself
A parliamentary hearing can produce a powerful television moment. An MP asks an uncomfortable question. An official struggles to answer. The room becomes tense. The clip circulates online.
But what happens after that? Was the answer technically tested? Were the underlying documents independently examined?
Did a qualified auditor reconcile the figures? Did a lawyer establish whether an actual legal breach occurred? Did a sector specialist explain whether the technical explanation was plausible? Did investigators establish a chain of responsibility?
Those questions determine whether Parliament is conducting an investigation or merely conducting an interrogation. The two are not necessarily the same thing.
Even the URC debate requires context
The current discussion around Uganda Railways Corporation demonstrates why parliamentary scrutiny should be evidence-led. URC is facing legitimate questions over financial performance, idle assets and the management of railway resources.
The Auditor General's findings have raised concerns, and Parliament is right to seek explanations. But there is a danger in reducing a technically complex institution to a single headline.
For example, the widely reported issue of 394 missing wagons was examined by the Committee on Physical Infrastructure, not COSASE. During that hearing, URC officials explained that the wagons involved Uganda and Kenya and that the problem emerged around the transition from the Rift Valley Railways concession and its wagon-management systems. The committee demanded documentary evidence on efforts to trace the wagons.
That explanation does not automatically resolve the matter. But it demonstrates why complex institutional questions require more than a dramatic exchange.
Railway assets move across borders. Concession arrangements have contractual histories. Asset registers change. Systems migrate. Ownership, custody and physical location are not necessarily the same thing.
These are precisely the circumstances in which Parliament benefits from engineers, auditors, lawyers, logistics specialists and investigators sitting behind the legislators before a conclusion is reached.
The Katuntu comparison is really about methodology
This is why the Abdu Katuntu era continues to feature in conversations about parliamentary oversight. The Bank of Uganda inquiry became one of COSASE's most consequential investigations, involving months of scrutiny into the closure of seven commercial banks.
The significance of that process was not simply that senior officials were summoned. It was that the investigation involved technical material, institutional evidence and detailed examination of a highly specialised financial system.
That is the standard worth debating. Not whether today's legislators are more aggressive. Not whether yesterday's legislators were more polite. But whether today's investigations are more technically rigorous, more legally defensible and more capable of producing lasting reform.
The real problem: what happens after the report? This may be Uganda's most persistent accountability weakness.
A committee can investigate for months. It can summon officials. It can produce a report. It can make strong recommendations. And then the public moves on.
The same institution may return before Parliament years later with another set of problems. That is where the effectiveness of parliamentary oversight must ultimately be judged.
The question should be the following:
What changed?
Was money recovered?
Were assets accounted for?
Were systems repaired?
Were procurement weaknesses closed?
Were responsible individuals held accountable where evidence established culpability?
Were recommendations implemented?
Did Parliament return to verify implementation?
If the answer to those questions is unclear, then the country has to ask whether it is measuring parliamentary success by the activity of committees rather than the outcomes they produce.
Temangalo offers an interesting counterpoint
The Temangalo matter demonstrates why follow-through matters more than spectacle. The dispute has existed for nearly two decades. NSSF acquired 463.87 acres in 2008, but a portion remained occupied and disputed. Parliament's renewed attention brought the matter back into public view.
Now there has been a significant development: NSSF and businessman Amos Nzeyi have reached an agreement concerning the disputed portion, with Nzeyi agreeing to buy back the land in question. That is the kind of development that should matter.
If parliamentary scrutiny helps move an 18-year-old dispute towards resolution, the public should care less about how dramatic the hearing was and more about whether the agreement is actually implemented. That is accountability with an outcome.
When the investigation becomes the story
There is, however, a broader institutional risk. The more public and confrontational parliamentary hearings become, the easier it is for the hearing itself to become the story.
Who was summoned?
Who refused to appear?
Who was threatened with arrest?
Who was embarrassed?
Who dominated the exchange?
Those are easy questions for the public to consume. The harder questions are less exciting.
What did the evidence establish?
What remains unproven?
Which law applies?
What technical explanation exists?
What alternative explanation was tested?
What recommendation is proportionate?
Who is responsible for implementing it? And what happens six months later?
Those are the questions that determine whether a committee has done its job.
Due process is not softness
There is another reason Parliament must be careful. A parliamentary committee is not a court. It does not convict people. It should not substitute public humiliation for proof.
Where evidence suggests criminal conduct, the appropriate investigative and prosecutorial institutions should become involved. Where the problem is administrative, the remedy may be administrative. Where the problem is policy, Parliament may need to change policy.
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Where the problem is underfunding, the solution may involve budgeting rather than punishment. And where the problem is simply a technical misunderstanding, the answer should be clarification rather than condemnation.
This is not about being soft on public officials. It is about making parliamentary findings strong enough to survive scrutiny outside the committee room.
Parliament needs stronger committees, not quieter ones
The answer, therefore, is not to tell COSASE or any other parliamentary committee to stop investigating. Uganda needs stronger oversight.
It needs committees that are fearless about following public money. But it also needs committees equipped to understand what they are investigating. That means better researchers. More specialised legal support. Auditors and forensic accountants. Engineers and sector specialists. Procurement experts. Economists. Better evidence management. And, perhaps most importantly, structured follow-up mechanisms.
A committee should be able to return to an institution and ask: You were here last year. We made these recommendations. What has changed?
That may be a less dramatic hearing. But it could be far more consequential.
The real test begins after the cameras leave
Uganda does not have an accountability problem because Parliament is asking too many questions. If anything, the country needs more serious questions. The problem arises when questioning itself becomes mistaken for accountability.
COSASE has a legitimate and important mandate. The current committee is entitled to interrogate Auditor General findings and demand answers from institutions within its remit. The same applies to other parliamentary committees operating within their respective mandates.
But Parliament should hold itself to the same standard it demands from the institutions it scrutinises. Evidence. Expertise. Due process. Proportionality. Follow-through. Results.
That is the difference between a parliamentary probe that generates headlines and one that actually strengthens the state.
The public does not ultimately benefit because an accounting officer was made to sweat before a committee.
It benefits when the missing money is recovered, the system is fixed, the responsible person is held accountable where warranted and the same problem does not return in the next auditor general's report.
The microphone eventually goes off. The cameras eventually leave. The committee eventually moves to the next institution.
What remains is the only question that really matters: Did anything actually change?
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Ugandan Researcher with interest in development issues
