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Muhakanizi Explains Poor Govt Services
[July 28, 2014]

Muhakanizi Explains Poor Govt Services


(AllAfrica Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Appearing before the House's Public Accounts Committee last Thursday, Secretary to the Treasury Keith Muhakanizi said the Finance ministry and accounting officers were to blame for poor delivery of services by government.



Muhakanizi said his ministry was responsible for not "releasing funds and budgeting well," while accounting officers in various government departments should be blamed for lack of "planning" and their failure to follow "procurement guidelines." "Was finance releasing funds and budgeting well? The answer is no. And why was the release of funds poor?" he said. "We [finance] were releasing funds every month, but no one can budget basing on one month, it's unacceptable and it was wrong." The meeting was attended by Auditor General John Muwanga.

Solution: Muhakanizi said the ministry had decided to decentralise the payment of salaries for government workers to alleviate salary delays. He assured MPs that the pending salary arrears for civil servants would be cleared by the "end of September" to enable workers deliver and do a good job.


"Teachers must teach, people must get their titles from the [ministry of] Lands, the Judiciary must deliver justice in a timely manner," he said.

Lack of planning: But Kalungu West MP Joseph Ssewungu (DP) did not buy into Muhakanizi's argument.

"I want to tell Keith [Muhakanizi] that you will not pay teachers by September because you promised before, to send payment vouchers to all districts on top of clearing all the salary arrears by June, but up to now, nothing has been done. But you can promise for the sake of making us happy," Ssewungu said.

Muhakanizi said many accounting officers in other government departments had failed to plan well and put in place procurement guidelines. He said, for example, that some accounting officers diverted "all the funds, to meet travel expenses of ministers." In the end, these officers were forced to ask for supplementary funds, which, in some cases, exceeded the legal 10 per cent of the total budget.

"Those people who always ask for supplementary [funds] know themselves, but I refused to cut development expenditures for consumption purposes and if anyone does it, it must be rejected," Muhakanizi said.

Copyright The Observer. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).

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