Humanist

Truth be told, I don’t really know if when I was five years old I ever thought of what I would want to be when I grew up. Although I can remember that which I admired of my parents and other adults, from which I can extrapolate.

We of Gen-X grew up with admiration for good orators, who would literally fact-check each other instantly – there and then during conversations and debates.

The cool people were the debaters, whether it be as part of the school debate teams or as a member of parliament (MP), a president, a representative of government, whatever, we revered the good fact-based orator.

Perhaps it is the reason that I find debates and utterances of our MPs fascinating. Although, I must admit, I am often left flummoxed. My perception of an MP is that they have aides, including research assistants, who do the groundwork and arm them with user-friendly facts. Apparently, it does not always hold true for our current Parliament.

For example, Parliament Watch reported: “MPs decry poor performance of Ugx 61.2Bn vocational schools project.”

I clicked on the link and read, looking for the substance – the “poor performance”. Which in the story was then defined as “mismanagement” and quantified as:

Norman Ajiri, the Project Coordinator’s “lack of basic knowledge of financial details,” because he “failed to provide a clear account (state the amount) of the total funds received for the project.” This according to Hon. Gorrethe Namugga.

As for Hon. Muwanga Kivumbi he expressed concern that “you’ve spent Ugx 20Bn on incomplete work.” And that “government funds are being used faster than donor funds,” which he surmised indicates a possibility it is a “conduit for siphoning government resources.”

I am flummoxed! the figures don’t add up. Where does the Ugx 61.2Bn in the story headline come from? In the story:

• Total financing from donors is stated as Ugx 53.6Bn and Government contribution as Ugx 43.1Bn which gives a total of Ugx 96.7Bn.
• Used funds – Ugx 26.5Bn of donor funds disbursed and Ugx 30.7Bn of Government funds released, which is a total of Ugx 57.2Bn.
• Unused funds – Ugx 27.1Bn of donor funds not disbursed and Ugx 12.4Bn of Government funds unreleased, which is a total of Ugx 39.5B.

It is the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament that invited representatives from the Ministry of Education to respond to the Auditor General’s findings of the 2023/2024 Audit.

Why then were MPs fixating on ‘grilling’ Ajiri on the amounts of resources the project had received? I would assume that the Project Audited Income and Expenditure Statement was part of of the audit report presented to Parliament.

How is not disbursing funds for good reason mismanagement of funds? As in, if the contractor’s contract is terminated, does it not make sense to stop disbursement of funds until a new contractor is is contracted?

If the infrastructure has not yet been built, does it make sense to spend the money on “furniture and laboratory equipment” until the buildings to house them are in place?

What was the MPs’ line of questioning about? And worse more, in my view, this is not the line of questioning that I expect MPs to take. I would expect MPs to derive questions from the Project Audit Management Letter.

• As in what did the Audit Management Letter say about the whereabouts of the funds? In addition, this information can be derived from the Audited Project Balance Sheet.
• Is the incomplete infrastructure value for money so far?
• Are donor funds, I assume restricted, being used in accordance with donor conditionalities? And that may explain the ‘slow’ rate of disbursements.
• Are Government contributions being made in a timely manner, in the appropriate quantities and utilized according to Government approved procedures? In addition, this information can be derived from the Project Audited Cash Flow.

As in, before their interaction with the Ministry of Education, I would have expected MPs to familiarize with and derive “basic financial details” from the projects 2023/2024:

• Audit Management Letter
• Income and Expenditure Statement
• Balance Sheet
• Cash Flow

All queries by MPs should have been directly linked to the project audited financial reports, including but not limited to the four listed above.

And, in my view, MPs should not necessarily have to be seen “grilling” officials, but also providing solutions on implementation of Audit Management Letters.

Otherwise, it was reported by Parliament Watch, the session did not demonstrate financial mismanagement nor even poor performance as alleged by MPs.

It is crucial that MPs serving on PAC, necessarily need to enhance their financial literacy endowment. It would enable them to correctly interpret financial reports.

This is as opposed to MPs struggling to pass off their insufficient financial literacy by creating alternative realities not backed by facts.