Auditor General John Muwanga
Government failed to spend and therefore returned back to the consolidated fund Shs3.1Trn in 2021, the Auditor General report dated December 2021 has revealed.
This has been attributed to under absorption due to the Covid-19 restrictions.
According to the report, Government’s approved budget Shs51.6Trn and of this, Shs46.7Trn was released. However, out of this, Shs43.6Trn was spent leaving Shs3.1Trn unspent.
Auditor General John Muwanga while handing over the report to Deputy Speaker Anita Among decried the meager funding to the Office of the Auditor General which has crippled work at the institution, stating that although they had planned to undertake 41,65 audits, only 2,692 audits were undertaken and the 1,473 audits mostly schools and tertiary institutions could not be undertaken due to resource constraints.
Edward Akol, Acting Assistant Auditor General Audits warned about the skyrocketing public debt that was placed at Shs69.6Trn as at June 30th 2021.
“The rate of increase of debt is higher than the rate of increment in the GDP levels which creates a risk of reaching unsustainable levels sooner of later,” said Akol.
He also added that although the debt strategy capped the interest revenue benchmark at 12.5%, this has been breached and shot to 15% meaning that 15% of revenue being collected is going into servicing interest payments.
“This is gradually reducing the funds available for funding other critical government expenditures given that 25% goes to salaries and wages,” remarked Akol.
