Key documents the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) relied on to supply food to vulnerable committees during the COVID-19 lockdown have gone missing, the COVID-19 Interventions Report for Financial Year 2019/20 released by the Ministry of Finance’s Budget Monitoring and Accountability Unit (BMAU) has revealed.
The officials from OPM refused to avail the documents to the Budget Monitoring, according to the report.
Released in October 2020, the report is the first official document to give a glimpse into how Government spent all the money released to fight the spread of coronavirus in Uganda.
Uganda recorded its first case of COVID-19 on 20th March 2020, a pronouncement that was followed with a number restrictions which included: Closure of borders and education institutions, stopping religious gatherings of any form, closure of business operations, that were categorised as non-essential among other measures.
After these restrictions, Government embarked on distribution of COVID-19 Relief Food in Kampala, Mukono and Wakiso districts and according to the OPM Programme Budgeting System (PBS) report, a total of Shs1.829bn was spent on procurement of agricultural items.
However, the Ministry of Finance Budgeting Unit revealed, “However, details on expenditure on procurement to ascertain value for money was not availed.”
In April 2020, Uganda distributed relief food to about 1.5 million urban poor who were affected by the lockdown as a measure to contain the COVID-19 outbreak in the country.
The beneficiaries received rations of 6kg of maize flour per person, 3kg of beans per person, and salt (the lactating mothers and the sick received 2kgs of powdered milk and 2kgs of sugar).
According to the breakdown, a total of 683,131 households in Kampala, Wakiso and Mukono inclusive of 15,242 households and 22,521 persons served by Uganda Red Cross Society Donations in Seeta Ward-Goma, Mukono received food items worth 11,329,398kgs of maize flour; 1,235,357kgs of beans; 26,221 tins of milk and 50,448kgs of sugar.
The Ministry of Finance also revealed that majority of vulnerable households did not benefit from the food donations including many urban and rural dwellers especially the sick and persons with disabilities (PWDs).
The report also notes lack of disaggregated data on the distribution lists to determine equitable distribution in terms of gender and equity.
