$0.5m Lost in Uganda
Embassy Closures
THE EASTAFRICAN
UGANDA'S AUDITOR General John Muwanga wants the Foreign Ministry to recover over a million shillings paid out last year to diplomats whose contracts had expired.
Following investigations by his office, Mr Muwanga said unless the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs gave a satisfactory explanation as to how expenditures of $526,392 (Ush1,047,520,080) were incurred in respect of personal emoluments to heads of mission whose contracts had long expired, the funds should be recovered from the officials.
But the ministry's accounting officer said that, since the officials were presidential nominees, the Office of the President should provide guidance on the matter.
Mr Muwanga also said the ministry should recover Ush219 million ($5.6 million) paid to a freight company for five foreign service officers who did not move to new stations. The money was received in 2000 when Uganda closed a number of its foreign missions in order to cut down on costs.
"A double payment of $18,700 which was made for transport of one of the officers should be recovered from the company. This amount does not include air ticket charges expended as documents pertaining to the same audit could not be readily available by the time of the audit," says the Auditor General's report, which is expected to come up for debate in parliament.
As most of the closed missions are now being re-opened, auditors said the whole exercise had been a waste of state funds.
In another instance, the ministry was invoiced $17,900 by AGS for purportedly transporting an officer's personal effects when he was recalled from New York. However, it was discovered that another company had carried out the service for a total of $21,407.
The Auditor General said: "I informed the accounting officer that costs of recalls are high and in many cases have been used as reasons for failure to effect them. The above, however, indicates that the recall exercise is not being properly managed, and with lack of transparency and proper record keeping could be resulting in loss of funds."
Ministry officials said a number of foreign service officers whose contracts had expired remained at their missions because the government did not have money to bring them and their families back home.
Over the last pwo years, the government has also been unable to post new diplomats at its embassies due to lack of funding.
But a ministry official told The EastAfrican last week that the Treasury was now releasing funds to enable new diplomats to take office. Brig Matayo Kyaligonza, the new High Commissioner to Kenya, is the first to take up his posting. He presented his credentials to Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki in Nairobi last week.
"The ambassadors are going out in phases because the government does not release money in bulk. As the money comes in, we post the diplomats," said the official.
It is expected that, over the next few months, the country will re-open many of the missions that were closed in the 1999/2000 financial year. Some of the serving diplomats who were transferred have already taken up their new postings.
Emmanuel Orenzi, Head of Africa and the Middle East in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told The EastAfrican that Uganda would soon reopen embassies in France, Germany and Cuba. The embassies were closed when the country decided to downsize its diplomatic staff because of the heavy financial burden.
President Yoweri Museveni earlier this year named envoys to Paris, Berlin, Kinshasa and Moscow, but owing to lack of funds, they were not deployed. Museveni has nominated Jacob Okello to go to Paris, Christopher Onyanga Apali to Berlin, Rhoda Kinani for Kinshasa and Elizabeth Napeyok for Moscow. The Congo embassy was closed in August 1998 when Uganda began supporting rebels fighting the late President Laurent Kabila's government.
The Foreign Ministry earlier this year informed the president that his new appointees could be not posted unless he prevailed upon the Treasury to fund the exercise, sources said.
Foreign Affairs officials were also engaged in talks with the Finance Ministry on releasing and regularising funding for foreign missions. The ministry says it needs money to bring home several diplomats whose contracts have expired.
Uganda in 2001 decided to re-open the embassies it had closed when it became evident that the closures were having a negative impact on relations with the affected countries and that some donors were as a result scaling down bilateral assistance.
Owing to a shortage of funds, Museveni three years ago suggested that the country's foreign missions be cut down from 26 to a mere six but the Foreign Ministry rejected this. Museveni wanted only the missions in London, Washington, Addis Ababa, Pretoria, Brussels and Geneva retained.
Two and a half years ago, Uganda rescinded a decision to close the mission in Tokyo after Japan reportedly threatened to shut down all its projects in Uganda. The embassy in China, which had also been earmarked for closure, was kept open when Beijing objected to the move. Subsequently, China in 2001 gave Uganda funds for construction of its Foreign Ministry headquarters and agreed to partially forgive the debts Uganda owed it.
Paris has reportedly been top on the list of the missions Uganda wants to re-open after the French government made a "direct appeal" to Museveni to do so. Increased co-operation between Paris and Kampala in seeking peace for the Great Lakes region has also made it critical to re-open that mission. Uganda is also set to open a mission in the Iranian capital Teheran in a bid to tap the Middle East market, which is increasingly becoming a source of markets and goods for Uganda.
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Additional reporting by Esther Nakkazi
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