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John F.S Muwanga Uganda's Auditor General
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A total of 6,718 public servants who were not validated by the Auditor General (AG) have been deleted from the payroll. The finance ministry directed all accounting officers to have them deleted by July 15, 2024. Details from the public service ministry indicate that 1,000 of those deleted have been sent to the Inspector General of Government (IGG) for further investigation on how they accessed the payroll.
Sources told Torch Media Africa that files of another group of affected staff were sent to the Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) to verify their academic qualifications.
Torch Media Africa has also learned that another batch of files for the affected staff has been sent to the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) to confirm their biodata. There is also a batch of files, mainly teachers, that have been sent to the education ministry to establish whether they were ever recruited and appointed to serve.
Last week, the finance ministry permanent secretary and Secretary to the Treasury, Ramathan Ggoobi, ordered all accounting officers to delete all unverified public servants from the payroll. Ggoobi directed that the deletion should be done no later than July 15, 2024. “It has been noted that many public officers missed the Office of the Auditor General verification exercise. The Ministry of Public Service scheduled a mop-up verification exercise for all officers who missed the initial exercise. All staff who were not verified during the special audit by the Office of the Auditor General should be deleted from the payroll no later than July 15, 2024,” he said in a budget execution circular dated July 15. He directed the Ministry of Public Service to communicate the list of verified public officers to all accounting officers by July 10, 2024.
Public Service Ministry
Catherine Bitarakwate Musingwiire, the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Public Service, said: “We embarked on the implementation of the recommendations of the payroll audit that was conducted by the Auditor General (AG). We have since deleted all the unverified public servants.”
Victor Leku-Bua, the ministry commissioner for human resource management in charge of compensation, explained that they have also written to accounting officers to give minutes of appointment for those deleted. In addition, he said, they are compiling a comprehensive report on the exercise which will inform the country on new policies to streamline payroll management. “During this exercise, we have been working with the Police, through CID, on several cases related to forgeries. Some of the affected staff have come out and confessed to fraudulently accessing the payroll. Such cases are being handled in accordance with the law,” he said. Leku-Bua spoke to New Vision on the recommendation of the permanent secretary.
The Numbers
During the payroll audit by the AG, a total of 7,778 public servants were declared fit to be deleted from the payroll for various reasons. Of these, 3,824 were either transferred to other offices or absconded or died, but remained on the payroll. The affected include 1,982 civil servants suspected to be ghosts since they did not show up for validation. It also included 1,972 government employees at ministries, departments, agencies, and local governments, paid using either the payroll maintained by the public service ministry or their own, but were not verified since they did not meet the verification requirements.
The payroll audit was conducted to establish the credibility of the government payroll, confirm the number of government workers, and estimate the payroll budget. It was also conducted to evaluate payroll management systems and make appropriate recommendations. According to the findings, a total of 338,966 public servants were fully verified. The payroll validation exercise covered 367 entities including 162 MDAs, 176 local governments, and 29 other government organizations for the month of February 2023. Of these, only 265 MDAs and LGs process their payrolls through the public service ministry while 102 MDAs utilize other payroll systems separate from the Integrated Personnel Payroll System (IPPS)/Human Capital Management System used by the public service ministry.
Why the Audit
In the financial year 2023/24, significant shortfalls were experienced in the wage, pension, and gratuity budgets. However, Ggoobi said finance had observed that most shortfalls resulted from poor planning, indiscipline in payroll management and processing as well as inaccurate records. Ggoobi said the allocation to the salary and wage budget was guided by the findings of the audit, adding that accounting officers are expected to accurately budget for the funds. He said accounting officers should be personally responsible for proper payroll management and payment of salaries. He directed that for the purpose of transparency, payrolls for wage and pension must be clearly displayed on publicly accessible noticeboards every month.
