The Past Week

We received disparaging news that MPs had failed to account for more than Shs 3.2billion handed out to them last year as the government’s contribution to their constituency development fund.

This is a fund that has been perennially plagued by poor accountability since it’s inception in 2005; a fund where a measly Shs 10million is banked into the personal accounts of our lawmakers every year. This latest episode precipitates fresh debate on the effectiveness of the fund.

In the past, MPs have rightly argued that the money is not enough to serve its original purpose which is to help finance small scale development projects in their constituencies. Now, if Shs 10million is not enough, there are two ways to go about this-either suspend the fund and leave development work for the government or increase it to substantial amounts.

But because government appears unable to increase the amount, scrapping the fund would be the most logical option.

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The Ministry of Finance was in the hot seat last week, as it emerged that the government had paid out close to Shs 300million to a U.S firm owned by Rosa Whitaker to write President Museveni’s speeches, among other assignments.

Budadiri MP Nandala Mafabi brought a cheeky spin to the curious payments after he described invoices presented by the finance chiefs accounting for the deal as documents similar to love letters.

“We cannot accept this nonsense,” Mr Mafabi said, adding, “They are not even signed yet public monies were paid.” While the revelation was both startling as it was hilarious, it only spoke volumes about the style of management of public funds by the Museveni administration.

Before seeking external help on speech drafting, had all the internal options been weighed? Lets not forget who received this money; yes, it is the same Rosa Whitaker of the Agoa fame. Remember what happened to Apparel Tri-Star and billions of our hard earned money? Same system, same characters, same script!

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If there is any public official who needs all our praise and support, it is John Muwanga the astute Auditor General. This guy has done an excellent job auditing government accounts and has unearthed scandal after scandal.

Parliament heard last week that a whooping Shs 159billion went squandered from the accounts of local governments across the country for the financial year 2007/2008 either through misuse, waste in expenditure or outright theft.

It is just foolhardy that such scandalous stats do not seem to provoke the amount of outrage that would be the impetus for stern action against corruption and waste of public money. The recommendations of the AG’s report should be upheld by government and Parliament must exert pressure on the state to take heed.

The government has laboured to create the impression that it is fixing this mess, but what we have been fed on is nothing but lip service. The conviction of Mr Teddy Ssezi Cheeye will now be the new cliché song about the NRM regime’s supposed zero tolerance of corruption campaign, but make no mistakes, these same vices will continue.

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Lawmakers on the Budget Committee handed out a stern warning to State House over its penchant for spending beyond its means, although I doubt such admonition will be heeded. Discussing supplementary budget reports for the different government sectors, MPs singled out State House for over shooting its budget.

Recently, State House asked for an additional Shs 21.3billion after revealing that it had spent within the first three months, all the Shs 66b allocated to it for this current financial year. And guess what, after blowing that money, the current supplementary seeks to cover travel expenses, fuel, and medical treatment for traditional and religious leaders, progressive farmers and donations to senior citizens.

For Christ sake who the heck are these people? Does the ambiguity of these allocations not leave a sour taste? Well, it certainly does and also brings it sharp focus the cost of running the presidency and state house. These are matters for which Parliament needs to express deep reservation with stern action.
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