State House has asked the Permanent Secretary/ Secretary to the Treasury (PSST) for permission to write off Shs 590,200,000 (Five hundred ninety million, two hundred thousand shillings) which was stolen by unnamed staff in the 2011/12 Financial Year (FY).
State House Comptroller, Lucy Nakyoobe Mbonye, disclosed this during an interaction with Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Wednesday April 14, 2021.
Nakyoobe was responding to PAC Chairperson Nathan Nandala Mafabi’s question as to why the above mentioned monies, categorized under receivables, have remained a constant figure in State House’s Books of Accounts.
“Mr. Chairman, that receivable is due to the money that was lost because of theft some years back and we have written to Finance many times to have it written off but they have not responded positively yet,” Nakyoobe asserted.
According to her, the suspects were court-martialed and sentenced to 20 years in Prison, however, they later appealed and were granted bail.
“I don’t know what happened to them thereafter,” she said.
Asked to name the perpetrators of this crime, what the money was meant for and where the robbery exactly took place, Nakyoobe declined and referred to newspaper reports instead.
“I cannot repeat those stories; if you go to the newspapers you will see those things. I do not want to repeat and maybe contradict myself,” she retorted.
She, however, reiterated that her request to expunge the Shs 590 million is within the law but did not cite any law to back her claims.
“It is a requirement in Government that once a loss has occurred, the Ministry of Finance is the only mandated entity to write it off. So you apply to write it off once it’s a loss in Government,” Nakyoobe buttressed.
According to the Public Finance Management Act of 2015; for this money to be written off, State House has to first write to the Ministry of Finance and the Accountant General before their request is forwarded to Parliament for consideration.
During the meeting, PAC also asked State House to avail evidence showing that log books of President Yoweri Museveni’s fleet are well maintained.
“Of the 100 vehicles sampled, 83 are used by the Security and His Excellency’s convoy. These vehicles are under one command center and do not maintain logbooks for security reasons. The remaining 17 are used by the heads of Department and Units,” State House documents indicate.
