Members of Parliament on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) have witnessed comedy when officials from Uganda Police Force (UPF) failed to account for over Shs692m money collected from gun licences and traffic penalties.
Reports show that Police never dispatched the money in question to the consolidated fund.
The Auditor-General report 2017/2018 highlighted a good number of queries and inconsistencies into UPF’s expenditure reports.
When the report reached Parliament, PAC summoned Police leadership to answer for the queries raised by Auditor General.
On Tuesday, the officials led by Deputy Inspector General of Police Sabiiti Muzeeyi and Assistant Inspector General (AIGP), Asan Kasingye appeared before PAC to defend the loopholes in their financial reports.
Nandala Mafabi, Chairperson PAC asked them to explain why Police were not remitting revenues collected in over two financial years. They learnt that Police was dispatching revenue collected less than the actual amount collected.
The committee was amused when the entire team failed to explain how such a big mistake came about.
According to the document presented by Auditor General in one financial year, over Shs23.4b was collected but the money which was dispatched to the consolidated fund is only ShS 22.449b leaving a gap of Shs692m not documented and unaccounted for.
While in the other financial year, Shs875b was not remitted. However, the officers asserted that by the closure of the financial year, the money was in transit to the consolidation fund’s account though it was not reflected in the Police’s financial statements.
The committee wondered why police were not willing to remit all funds it had collected.
“Why would Police collect revenue and refuse to remit it directly to the consolidated fund as required by the law,” said Wilberforce Yaguma member of Parliament Kashari North.
Mafabi noted that Police must be keeping some money off the office account which is against the laws.
“It should have been Shs692m only, Shs284m is seen which shows this money is somewhere, not in the coffers of Police. Shs23.141b of Non-Taxed Revenue was collected, you transferred Shs22.45b leaving a balance of Shs692m. We want to confirm that this money is on Police account, however, your statement shows that you have Shs284m cash, This shows that Police must have kept money somewhere, we must find out who kept that money.” he said.
Reacting to Mafabi’s comment, the Under Secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Aggrey Owiny said that there was a problem while transferring money to the consolidation fund’s account, though later Bank of Uganda asked them to resend the money.
However, Owiny’s statement raised other unanswered questions asking how the Treasury would ask for funds after issuing a receipt acknowledging to have received UGX875m.
“Did you people forge this receipt? How could Treasury give you a receipt before remitting that money did Treasury gave you the receipt?” Asked Mafabi.
The committee chairman promised officials that they will investigate the authenticity of the receipt from the treasury.
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