The Comptroller of State House Mrs. Jane Barekye has blasted Members of the Parliament on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) who asked her why State House was involved in the various projects that are a mandate of other institutions.
“My mandate is to facilitate the president to perform his duties according to the constitution. All that I am doing is to facilitate him and I am not training the youth under the house of the president.” Barekye rebutted.
Barekye is the Accounting Officer of State House and she was responding to audit queries raised by the Auditor General in his 2023 report, which noted duplicity of activities in various government agencies.
The MPs were of the view that the State House should lead the country on rationalization, instead of being the leading duplicator of government work.
“These activities are in districts, and everywhere in the regions so he is serving Ugandans through his vote and it is his decision.” Barekye added.
In mid-April 2024, Parliament approved the rationalisation of government agencies in a bid to cut down on public expenditure and harmonise government service. Parliament passed five bills related to this rationalisation including the Warehouse Receipt System (Amendment) Bill 2024, the Free Zones (Amendment) Bill 2024, the Uganda Exports Promotions Boards Act (Repeal) Bill 2024, the Uganda Wildlife Conservation Education Centre Act (Repeal) Bill 2024 and the Uganda Wildlife (Amendment) Bill 2024.
The house also debated and rationalised the Uganda National Meteorological Authority (Amendment) Bill 2024 and the National Commission for UNESCO (Amendment) Bill 2024 doing away with the board and the entity back to the Ministry of Education. The Uganda National Meteorological Authority (Amendment) Bill 2024 proposed to amend the Uganda National Meteorological Authority Act, 2012, to integrate the functions of the Authority into the Ministry of Water and Environment.
However, State House has a plethora of units that are duplicate of other government agencies, for example the land unit, anti-corruption unit, health monitoring, infrastructure monitoring, investor protection, among others, yet these government functions are catered for in Ministries, Departments and Agencies.
“You buy equipment that should have gone to a technical school, you put it in these (presidential) hubs. This is how government keeps doing the same things and you speak about rationalisation… you are now giving certificates to people who never went to school saying they are now O’level. What is the curriculum?” The Committee chairperson Muwanga Kivumbi posed.
Every financial year, State House presents requests for supplementary budgets. The financial year 2023/24 saw government present a supplementary budget of 3.5trn with 100bn going to State House as classified expenditure.
