Minister Kajura grilled over 'ghost' workers

By Umaru Kashaka           

MPs on budget committee have tasked the minister of public service, Henry Kajura, to explain why his ministry reinstated over 6,000 civil servants contrary to Auditor General’s advice to delete them.

Appearing before the committee to defend a sh59b supplementary budget, finance state minister, Fred Omach, attributed the salary shortfalls this fiscal year to the reinstatement of workers by the public ministry who were not budgeted for.

“In the financial year 2011/12, the AG carried out a forensic audit on the government payroll and identified a total of 6554 invalid payroll records and names especially under police department, primary and secondary education. On account of the recommendation of the audit report, these names were deleted from the payroll and therefore not budgeted for in this financial year,” Omach told the committee chaired by Pian County MP Achia Remigio.

He added: “However, according to the ministry of public service, over 6, 000 of these records have since been reinstated on the payroll after verification and yet they were not budgeted.”

The committee demanded for an explanation from Kajura why his ministry decided to overturn the AG’s report and reinstated “ghost workers” on the payroll.

“Should we have an explanation from the minister who happens to be with us here as to why his ministry acted contrary to AG’s recommendation? Are you informing us that you invalidated the AG’s report and decided to have these “ghost workers” back to the payroll? If this is true, then you acted against the law and should explain why,” the Bufumbira East MP, Eddie Kwezira, kicked off what turned out to be a heated debate.

The West Budama North MP, Fox Odoi, asked the ministry to explain where they got the mandate to overturn the AG’s advice.

“The report of the AG is binding and no one should therefore invalidate it. We can’t push on as a committee unless the concerned minister pronounces himself on this issue because we even heard that they left the ‘ghosts’ on the payroll and deleted the genuine teachers. This perhaps explains why teachers haven’t been paid,” he noted.

Kajura admitted that it was an error made by the technical team.

 “At times these things happen and we tend to have procedural errors. However, this has already happened and its two days to the end of this financial year. Can I then request that you pass this budget so that workers receive their pay and then we deal with this issue later?” he implored calmly.

His appeal, however, fell on deaf ears as MPs continued to demand a convincing explanation.

According to the Auditor General‘s report, sh165b was misappropriated in pension payments by the ministry of public service.

Of this amount, sh155.7 b was lost in payments to ghost pensioners; sh9.5b in double payments to the nonexistent pensioners and sh173.9m in doubtful payments to foreign pensioners.