Ugandan officials used rats to eat Covid cash

 

What you need to know:

• The findings of gross abuse of Covid funds are unsurprising after the Inspectorate General of Government (IGG), the government ombudsman, reported in October that Uganda loses Shs9.8t to corruption annually. The figure is down from a 2021 report released by the same office that put the yearly graft-related haemorrhage at Shs20t.
• The Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovations (MoSTI) engaged in irregular Covid-related procurements, a forensic audit by the Auditor General, Mr John Muwanga, has revealed.
  According to the report, the ministry provisioned Shs46m for eight specialised rats, but only bought half while local rats for which Shs10m was claimed could not be seen.

• Auditors found that the cost of the rats meant for research were bloated, no due diligence was undertaken on suppliers or to ascertain market rates before initiating procurements, leading to bleeding of public finances, and some cash was simply diverted.
  The report reveals that the ministry in violation of government procurement rules, contracted firms that were not prequalified to provide services.
  When contacted yesterday, the Science, Technology and Innovations minister, Dr Monica Musenero, said: “The accounting officer will provide the necessary explanations.”

  In an earlier response to the report by the parliamentary select committee, she denied any wrongdoing in the implementation and said all the accountability issues were already cleared by the auditor general.
  Mr Muwanga handed over the classified report, which Parliament commissioned, to the Speaker of Parliament, Ms Anita Among, on Wednesday.
  Parliament sought to scrutinise the expenditures during the government’s official response to fight the pandemic after its ad hoc committee spotted suspect accountabilities and sham deals.
  A copy of the latest forensic audit report, which this publication has seen, shows that the Finance ministry credited Shs190b out of the Science, Technology and Innovations ministry’s Shs816b revised approved budget to its account number 000230058000002 with Bank of Uganda.

• The report states that Shs10b of the released funds was meant for the Innovation Fund, but about half was reallocated for the Covid response.
  The ministry, according to auditors, directly received Shs31b in 2020/2021 Financial Year in supplementary funding for the pandemic fight in addition to allocations in the previous year.
  MoSTI officials then used some of the money to directly procure research equipment worth Shs5.3b and Shs15.9b from suppliers who had not been prequalified.“In addition, MoSTI incurred the procurement expenditure for the said research equipment without market price assessments, as stipulated by the procurement regulations,” the report signed by Mr Muwanga reads in part.
  It added: “I noted the absence of a framework for intellectual property rights commercialisation of public funded innovations, research and development. MoSTI was required to develop the framework in partnership with Presidential Scientific Initiative on Epidemics (PRESIDE) under Article 6.4 of the Memorandum of Understanding dated September 7, 2020 between MoSTI a PRESIDE.”
  Earlier this year, Parliament’s select committee on Science, Technology and Innovation investigated allegations of corruption against Dr Musenero, the MoSTI minister, and recommended that PRESIDE be disbanded over gross irregularities.
  The committee noted that although PRESIDE was established to spearhead the pathogen economy, its operations had been stymied by mismanagement, poor accountability and overall poor planning.
• READ: