NEWS– The Speaker of Parliament Rt Hon Anita Among has reiterated Parliament’s commitment to reduce public borrowing.
Hon Among said this today January 9th 2024 while receiving the Auditor General’s Annual report on the public accounts for the Financial Year ended 30th June 2023 which was presented by the Auditor General John Muwanga.
Speaker Among emphasized the importance of conducting regular value-for-money audits to foster public accountability and reduce unnecessary borrowing.
“As Parliament, we will do our part in ensuring we scrutinise the reports of the Auditor General. We have put a lot of money in Parish Development Model (PDM), institutions in the name of buying shares, so we need to know how much money we have and how it is performing,” Among said.
According to the Auditor General’s report for Financial Year 2022/2023, the total public debt as at 30th June 2023 stood at Ugx 96.1 trillion, comprising domestic debt stock of Ugx 43.6 trillion and external debt stock of Igx 52.4 trillion.
The Assistant Auditor General in charge of Audits, Edward Akol, who accompanied Muwanga noted that there has been a consistent increase in the total debt as evidenced by an increase of 107 percent in the five years from 2018/2019 of Ugx 46 trillion to Ugx 96.1 trillion as at 30th June 2023, which implies that the public debt is growing at a higher rate than Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The increase in public debt has been attributed to increased government expenditure compared to the domestic revenue to finance the fiscal deficit.
The existence of ghost employees in public service, and ghost PDM enterprises were among the key highlights of the Auditor General’s report and the aftermath of the 2023 validation exercise of government employees revealed that government lost Ugx 6.7 billion paid to 1,818 ghost employees.
On the other hand, in 68 Local Governments, 604 beneficiaries in 242 PDM SACCOs had implemented ineligible projects while, in 20 Local Governments, 53 beneficiaries in 44 PDM SACCOs had non-existent projects.
The Speaker of Parliament Rt Hon Anita Among however, commended the Auditor General for consistently and promptly executing his mandate prescribed in Article 163 (3) of the Constitution.
“As Parliament, we are committed to effectively playing our role in the Public Finance and Accountability cycle to enable greater transparency and accountability in the management of public resources. This report marks the beginning of public scrutiny which I will undertake under Article 163 which has to be done within six months,” Hon Among added.
Parliament receives the report of the Auditor General on the audited accounts of Government for the previous Financial Year every January, which contains audit findings on government consolidated financial statements and financial performance of public corporations, state enterprises, and companies in which government has controlling interests.
