The Committee of Commissions, Statutory Authorities, and State Enterprises (COSASE) has demanded that the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) outline its plans to recover salaries paid to six employees who were simultaneously drawing salaries from UBOS and other government agencies.
MPs suspect this could be part of a connivance scheme involving top government officials.
The issue was highlighted by Allan Mayanja (Nakaseke Central) during a session on Wednesday where he asked UBOS officials to respond to findings from the December 2023 Auditor General’s report.
The report questioned why UBOS maintained these employees on the payroll despite laws prohibiting individuals from drawing two salaries from the consolidated fund.
“It was noted that six employees who were on the submitted staff list of UBOS were also validated and employed in other government agencies while at the same time under employment at UBOS. Can you explain this?” Mayanja asked.
Aliziki Kaudha Lubega, Director of Economic Statistics at UBOS, informed the Committee that the Bureau was unaware of the dual employment and promptly removed the employees from the payroll once the issue came to light.
“We noted this, and it was a wake-up call. Most of these staff were on short-term projects of six months. Due diligence has been primarily conducted for permanent staff, where all verifications are done. We only had one permanent staff member among them. Since the verification, all the affected staff were deleted from the payroll,” Kaudha explained.
However, Isiah Sasaga (Budadiri East) dismissed this explanation, asserting that double payments are part of a broader scheme within both central and local government agencies, where top officials knowingly maintain individuals on multiple payrolls and share the proceeds.
“This is a growing vice, with many agencies conniving within some staff. They maintain the person knowingly and share the proceeds in the background. This vice is eating up not only the ministries but also the local government. They claim they discovered it only during audits; could that be true?” he questioned
Additionally, MPs questioned the integrity of the UBOS payroll after the Auditor General pointed out inconsistencies in the dates of birth of 30 employees between the main payroll and data captured by the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA).
The auditors argued that inconsistent information undermines the integrity of the Bureau’s records and may complicate the employees’ retirement procedures.
Comments are closed.