Finance ministry officials urged to uphold transparency

By Edward Kayiwa

KAMPALA - Finance Minister Matia Kasaija has urged senior government officials to uphold professionalism and transparency during implementation of Public Private Partnership agreements.

“We are losing a lot of money each year through corruption in procurement deals during implementation of PPPs [Public Private Partnerships], which affects planning for several projects intended for development,” he noted.

The minister warned government officials previously involved in conniving with the private sector to perpetrate fraud and corruption that government will not hesitate to take appropriate measures to stop the practice.

The deputy Inspector General of Government (IGG) recently accused public servants of conniving with the private sector to defraud government of huge sums of money.

George Bamugemereire said the ombudsman had noticed an increasing trend of syndicated corruption cases involving public servants, which have led to a hemorrhage of public funds.

Meanwhile, Minister Kasaija told ministry officials to make PPPs better by upholding decency, professionalism, accountability, integrity and diligence.

This was during a training workshop on the development of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) in Uganda at the Speke Resort Hotel in Munyonyo.

“Government is looking at strengthening the procurement and contract management function in the public service that will result in enhanced efficiency and transparency in the management of public service procurement operations. We are relying on you to make it work by desisting from syndicated corruption,” he advised.

Previous estimates by the World Bank have indicated that Uganda loses approximately $258.6m (about sh853.4b) every year through procurement malpractices and corruption.

The auditor general’s report of 2005 also indicates procurement accounts for over 70% of government’s budget for goods, services and works, but 20% of that is lost by way of corruption.

“We have allocated too much money this financial year [2015/16] to infrastructure development and the private sector will play a major role in this. However, we need our team to be well versed with negotiating with the private sector without any ignorance because this is why they are sometimes compromised,” said Kasaija, who read his maiden budget earlier in June.

The training was facilitated by BADEA, a financial institution owned by 18 Arab countries, which are also members of the League of Arab States, and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR).

Andreas Schmaltz, a Public Finance and Trade Programme specialist at UNITAR, advised government to put in place a strong Policy and Regulatory Framework to mitigate the risks associated with PPPs.

Schmaltz reiterated UNITAR’s commitment to strengthening the economic, financial and technical co-operation between Arab states and African nations which are non-members of the Arab League.

“As UNITAR, we are committed to equipping the finance ministry officers and other affiliated institutions with technical understanding of PPPs, bridge the skills gap in regard to fundamental infrastructure development, and improve contract management, and monitoring and evaluation,” he said.

A PPP policy was adopted by Cabinet in 2010 and this has been augmented by the PPP Bill (2012) which was passed by Parliament and awaits to be assented to by President Yoweri Museveni.