UBOS on the spot over payroll inconsistencies

The Committee of Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises has tasked the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) to explain plans being made to recover salaries paid to the staff who were also drawing salaries from other Government agencies.

MPs have raised suspicion that this could be the latest connivance scheme brewing within Government that sees these staff share their proceeds with top officials in government.

This follows a request by Allan Mayanja (Nakaseke Central) to officials of the Uganda Bureau of Statistics to respond to the query raised in the December 2023 Auditor General’s report, why the Bureau maintained these employees on the payroll, yet the law bars any individual from drawing two salaries from the consolidated fund.

“This is a growing vice, very many agencies are conniving within some of the staff. Much aware that they have got job X, and they are on job Y. They maintain the person knowingly, which they are pretending to not know at this time, and in the background, they share the proceeds very well and this is the vice that is eating up, not only the Ministries, but even in the local Government. They say they only discovered when the audits were done, could that be true? Mayanja notes.

The Auditor General also notes that 96 employees who were paid UGX91Million were confirmed to have had expired contracts by the time of validation.

Additionally, the wages were paid to the said individuals prior to their exit from the Bureau and then subsequently removed from the payroll in consultation with the accounting officer.

The MPs also query the integrity of the Bureau’s payroll after the Auditor General pointed out that 30 employees had inconsistences in their dates of births, in the main payroll and data captured by the National Identification & Registration Authority (NIRA)

This as auditors argue that inconsistent information undermines the integrity of the Bureau’s records and may complicate the employee’s retirement procedures.