Minister Matia Kasaija
Auditor General John Muwanga has cleared Finance minister Matia Kasaija and the Secretary to the Treasury Keith Muhakanizi over allegations of misappropriating $200m (over Shs700bn) PTA loan.
Muwanga in his special audit report says that the said $200m loan was disbursed by TDB between October 2016 and July 2017 and deposited in the TFFA in BOU and subsequently transferred to the
Consolidated Fund Account before it was disbursed to the right beneficiaries including the aggrieved National Medical Stores (NMS).
On February 07, 2018, Speaker Rebecca Kadaga blocked the proposed censure of Kasaija and Muhakanizi and ordered Auditor General to investigate the matter before Parliament proceeds to debate the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) committee that implicated the two for ‘duping’ Parliament and ‘fraudulently’ receiving the $200m (about Shs720bn) loan in guise of giving it to NMS for procurement of medical supplies.
Consequently, the Auditor General has concluded its special audit on the said loan and has handed the report to parliament which is set to be presented on Thursday (today) where it will be debated along with the committee report.
The Auditor General’s special audit report revealed that NMS received all the money that the entity was supposed to get from as part of the PTA loan.
“Based on the copies of submissions made to TDB, documentation received from the NMS, and interactions with the NMS, TDB, and MOFPED, I established that all funds appropriated to NMS in the FY 20l5/2016 and
2016/20l7 were received fully by NMS including approved supplementary funding of Shs58bn,” the report reads.
Muwanga added in his report saying, “In addition, by February 2018 (FY2017/2018), NMS had received the bulk of its appropriated budget. Out of the USD.42,88O,625.09 worth of framework contracts submitted in support of the drawdown request, NMS had placed and executed orders amounting to USD.24,468,897.22 which were paid in the FY 2016/2017 and are still being settled in 2017/2018 through their appropriated budgets as the contracts perform.”
According to the report, the approved budget and releases to NMS indicated that the entity received all entire budgets of Shs.218bn in 2015/16 and Shs.264bn in 20L6117 and by February 2018 (FY 2017/2018), NMS had so far received Shs269bn out of the approved budget of Shs258bn.
To enable NMS to finance its budget shortfall, the entity requested for a supplementary funding totaling to Shs68bn in financial year 205/2016 and 2016/2017 to facilitate procurement of blood collection/ testing as well as malaria drugs by NMS.
