By Madinah Tebajjukira
and Milton Olupot

IN a surprise move, the chairman of the parliamentary public accounts committee (PAC), Nandala Mafabi, has denied asking the Uganda Broadcasting Corporation to carry out a value-for-money audit of the publicity activities for the 2007 Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting by Saatchi & Saatchi.

He also denied having received the report.

“The committee asked UBC to help the Auditor General carry out a value- for-money audit on Globecast and not Saatchi & Saatchi. We are wondering who instructed UBC to carry out an audit on a different company,” Mafabi said on Friday.

A day earlier, he had told The New Vision that he commissioned the audit on Saatchi & Saatchi. The committee asked UBC to give an independent assessment because it is a Government body familiar with media operations, Mafabi explained then.

UBC managing director Edward Mukasa confirmed that the report was requested by PAC and had been sent to Parliament.

“They had requested us to give an overview and we asked our internal auditor to do the job,” he said.

In the cover letter accompanying the report, addressed to Mafabi, Barbara Musoke, on behalf of the managing director, said the request was made to them verbally by Mafabi.

“I am pleased to submit to you a value-for- money audit of the CHOGM publicity services as requested by yourself on December 15, 2009,” the letter, dated January 28, states.

“Parliament’s PAC made a verbal request to UBC to undertake a value-for-money assessment of the CHOGM media and publicity related services contract awarded to Saatchi and Saatchi, an advertising agency that won the contract for the CHOGM preparations.”

The letter, which was copied to the clerk of Parliament and the UBC board chairman, further explained that six UBC staff were assigned the task.

According to the copy seen by The New Vision, the letter was signed for reception by Mafabi’s secretary, Dinah Muhiga, on February 3.

The report had cleared Saatchi and Saatchi of any wrongdoing. It agreed with the Steadman Group that total media exposure was worth almost three times the value of the contract.

“The CHOGM campaign received total media exposure of sh6.2b in response to a total spend of sh2.3b,” the report stated.

Saatchi and Saatchi carried out the media activities together with Terp, the company of President Museveni’s son-in-law, Odrek Rwabogo.

During the committee proceedings on Friday, most MPs did not seem to know about the UBC report.

“When did we ask UBC to do a value-for-money audit on Saatchi & Saatchi activities?” Kabondo Tindamanyire asked Mafabi.

The PAC chairman replied that the only report he expected from UBC was on Globecast.

Committee members who declined to be named confirmed that Mafabi verbally asked UBC to carry out an audit on Saatchi and Saatchi.

They also said Mafabi received the UBC report but did not want to make it public because it clears the advertising agency.

“All we expected at the time of assigning UBC was a negative report. When it turned out to be positive, some committee members, the chairman inclusive, have not accepted the findings,” a committee member said.