The recent recruitment byUganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC) in an effort to revamp the national broadcaster has been questioned by the Auditor General, John Muwanga.
According to the just released 2018 audit report by the Office of the Auditor General, UBC never carried the recruitment exercise as per the set procedures, but simply head hunted most of the staff.
The report says some of the staff were never interviewed to test their competencies but were head hunted by top government officials.
Government in April 2018 embarked on the recruitment of staff announcing that job slots at UBC had been reduced by 176 to 349 jobs after the 2016 report pointed out that the staff were being paid poorly and the matter was being worsened by UBC defaulting on remitting staff’s pension contributions.
The report added that most employees lacked employment contracts while some board members lacked required skills to provide effective oversight. The report called for a revamp to return UBC to its lost glory.
The audit report also raised questions on the remuneration of the revamp team and inconsistency in the tenure of Managing Director.
It also raised queries on the Procurement of Production Cameras and Accessories at Shs236.9m.
The Audit report also noted that despite the revamp, UBC recorded revenue shortfall of Shs23.7bn, having received Shs12.5bn out of the budget of Shs36.28bn and had gone back to its days of accumulating debts that had hit the Shs46.3bn mark.
The Auditors also discovered that there was irregular inclusion of a signatory on a Bank Account as well as Payment for non disclosed payables of Shs494.9m as well as the unsupported Trade Payables of Shs3.6bn and unaccounted for Funds worth Shs163.2m.
