Auditor General’s reports to be handled differently – Tayebwa

The Deputy Speaker, Thomas Tayebwa has said the Business Committee of Parliament will discuss a strategy to effectively handle reports of the Auditor General.

According to the Deputy Speaker, government can only implement recommendations of the Auditor General if they have been adopted by Parliament.
“If you wait for four or five years to approve a report, how will you process a Treasury Memoranda, which is an action-taken report? But out of a committee, you can make a subcommittee and scrutinise projects or MDAs. When you adopt as a committee, you come here and we debate,” said Tayebwa.

He gave the guidance while chairing the House on Tuesday, 21 January 2024.

This followed a proposal by Hon. Ibrahim Ssemujju (FDC, Kira Municipality) that the Auditor General’s report should be expeditiously adopted by the House, before further investigations are made by committees.
“We have been treating the Auditor General’s report as raw material for committees to do work. In other jurisdictions like Kenya, the report of the Auditor General is adopted as it comes, then committees request to do further investigation in specific areas,” Ssemujju noted.

Tororo District Woman Representative, Hon. Sarah Opendi raised concern about the constitutional provisions of handling the Auditor General’s reports by Parliament, and the time given to committees to handle the business.
“The Constitution says we must consider them within six months. Now, if within six months, the committee is only given two or three months to handle these reports, and you have about 400 or so entities, how can we effectively handle them and conclude business?” Opendi said.

The Deputy Speaker noted that the work of the standing committees, which scrutinise the Auditor General’s report, was halted to allow legislators to prioritise the business timelines expected with handling the Budget Framework Paper (BFP).
“But now that the Budget Committee has already started receiving committee reports for the BFP, we hope to conclude by next week. On the issue of time, I think it is something we shall go back and discuss administratively,” Tayebwa added.

Tayebwa also said that the Auditor General was urged to carry out value for money audits and special audits, in a bid to produce a comprehensive report to be considered by Parliament.

This, he noted, will go beyond the scope of financial audits and give more details on issues of mischarge alongside value for money.
“If you said you did one kilometre at Shs1 billion in Masaka, how come a neighbouring district like Lyantonde is doing it at Shs500 million? It is the same landscape, same conditions but you are not getting value on one side. Accountability committees must now squeeze in much deeper,” said Tayebwa.

He also urged the committees to become stricter on accounting officers of institutions, noting that only 31 per cent of parliamentary recommendations made while adopting the Auditor General’s report for financial year 2023/2024 were adopted.

Additionally, 35 per cent of these recommendations were partially implemented, whereas 34 per cent were not implemented at all.