The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Moroto, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee-PAC on Tuesday tasked officials from Moroto Regional Referral Hospital to account for 603.4 million shillings that was irregularly spent on salaries, non-budgeted items among others.
Led by the Hospital Director Dr Benedicto Watmon, the officials were appearing before the committee to answer audit queries raised Auditor General John Muwanga in the financial year 2018/2019.
In the report, Muwanga noted 159.87 million charged on wrong budget lines in the accounts, creating a mischarge, another 96.37 million unaccounted for, 54.54 million excess expenditure and others.
The other irregularities he identified are a variance of 34.3 million received by Rose Mary Nate over and above her computed pension gratuity, 162.02 million overpayments of salaries and irregular payment of taxable arrears amounting to 71.88 million and others.
The Auditor-General pointed to weak commitment controls or a deliberate attempt to defraud funds.
Tasked by PAC Vice Chairperson Okin Ojara to explain the anomalies, Joyce Lekuru the hospital accountant acknowledged having mischarged funds saying that part of it was paid towards the construction of residential buildings for staff from the allocation for maternity ward construction and the rest spent on water expenses, fuel, seminars and others.
Regarding the unaccounted for funds, Lekuru appealed to the committee to avail accountability documents saying that these were during the audit process with development partners for routine verification.
Ojara wondered why the accountability documents were not availed to the auditors immediately after they were received by the hospital. However, the accountant said that these came much later after the report was made.
The explanation did not convince Ojara who asked Watmon whether he was comfortable with how Lekuru was handling the hospital accounts. He said that the queries at hand made the Auditor General give the hospital a qualified opinion citing the excess expenditure made by the facility on some items way above what was allocated.
Dr Watmon said that the accountant can handle the hospital accounts but needed support from other assistants in the accounts department who are yet to be recruited.
Responding to the query of excess expenditure amounting to Shillings 54.5 million, Watmon said that this was caused by the increasing number of bodies abandoned at the hospital by relatives forcing the facility to meet burial expenses.
Dr Watmon told MPs that the hospital has no choice but to bury a body that is abandoned since Moroto Municipality has no funds for the activity. He said that these are buried by a Service provider Berosicky Uganda Limited at the Municipal grounds at a cost of Shillings 300,000 for each body.
But Ojara said that the issue of spending money on activities that were not budgeted for stands and that the hospital officials were to be held accountable.
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