The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has tasked Makerere University officials to explain why they submitted their payroll to the World Bank in order to access funds for the Regional Centre for Crop Improvement project.
The officials had appeared before the committee led by the Acting University Secretary, Yusuf Kiranda to respond to audit queries raised by Auditor General in his financial year 2017/2018 report.
The committee had that Makerere University employs more than 5000 staff and spends Shillings 156billion on their salaries. The Committee also learnt that the World Bank tasked the University to submit its pay roll before accessing US$ 6 million grant- approximately Shillings 21.9billion for the Makerere University Regional Centre for Crop Improvement (MaRCCI).
MaRCCI is a unit under the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences offering a PhD programme in Plant Breeding and Biotechnology and Master of Science-MSc in Plant Breeding and Seed Systems. MaRCCI is a five-year project that started in March 2017 and ends in 2022. It currently supports the breeding of two model crops, cowpeas and sorghum.
Katherine Mutenga, the Project accountant told the MPs that the conditions set by the World Bank are not unique to the MaRCCI project. She said that they could not access money from the World Bank without submitting their staff payroll.
“We had to comply as people who needed money,” said Mutenga, arguing that sometimes the information is required for comparison purposes. Her revelation surprised the legislators prompting the Public Accounts Committee-PAC chairperson, Nathan Nandala Mafabi to question why the World Bank would need such information.
“Why do you have to expose the people’s salary to the Bank? Is the university’s payroll paid by the World Bank?” he asked. A further scrutiny of the project accounts by Mafabi established that the project managers had even inflated the payroll.
Mafabi said that the University had submitted wrong information to the funders after establishing that in 2018, a payroll of Shillings 201billion had been submitted as opposed to Shillings 156billion. Dr. Richard Edama, the MARCCI project manager appealed for more time to offer an explanation to the committee.
Edama also found a hard time to explain why they lent funds worth US $ 51,040 approximately Shillings 186.8million from the project to another project- the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).
The Auditor-General says that in return, AGRA project refunded US$ Dollars 51,896 approximately Shillings 189.9million. Edama apologized to the Committee for lending out project funds without the approval of the funders, saying that it was a mistake.
He also noted that the money returned in excess by AGRA was still on their account since they could not send it back. The AGRA project closed in 2018.
Nandala directed Edama to present to the committee the MaRCCI project plan and bank statements, evidence that AGRA requested for funds and the AGRA end of the project report.
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