The Bugweri County Member of Parliament, Abdu Katuntu has admitted that parliament hasn’t done enough to support the Inspectorate of Government-IG to combat corruption. Katuntu is also the Chairperson of the Committee on Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE).
He was responding to a question raised by a participant in engagement with the Inspector General of Government, Justice Irene Mulyagonja, the Deputy Auditor General, Francis Masuba and the Director Legal and Investigations Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority-PPDA, Uthuman Segawa shortly after appearing on the Capital gang.
During the interaction, Omar Wesswa, an officer from Uganda Muslim Supreme Council-UMSC asked Katuntu whether parliament receives reports from the Inspectorate of Government and what exactly they do with her findings. “Definitely we receive reports from the IGG and are supposed to debate them, but I must admit that we are not doing enough,” he said. “You know in our country here, sometimes we tend to focus on less important things,” he added.
The Inspectorate of Government submits two reports to parliament annually. Parliament is expected to read the report and come up with policies to help the Inspectorate of Government to combat corruption. According to Katuntu, despite their failure to discuss reports from the Inspectorate of Government, parliament is fully behind the war against corruption led by the Inspector General of Government.
During the engagement, Justice Irene Mulyagonja highlighted some of the achievements of the Inspectorate of Government such as the prosecution of those involved in the Katosi road scandal. “We faced challenges right from investigation of this matter, but we are happy that we have now reached a point where court ruled that the accused have a case to answer,” she said. Adding that, “Prosecuting some of these cases isn’t very easy because of the limited resources and legal suits by the accused persons to prevent their prosecution.”
Earlier on while appearing on the Capital Gang, Justice Mulyagonja noted that the Inspectorate only receives Shillings 8 million for investigations each month. “Starting next year we shall scale down on the investigations because of budgetary constraints,” she day.
