The Ministry of Health has assured Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee that it will make provisions for the legislators to visit the construction site of the International Specialised Hospital of Uganda in Lubowa to ascertain the progress of construction.
This followed a comment by the engineer supervising the works to say that progress of construction is at 35%. The Ministry of Health officials had appeared before PAC to answer audit queries of the financial year 2022/2023, among the queries is the overpayment of Shs286 billion to the contractor of the Lubowa hospital.
However, MPs on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) had set to inspect the construction site for Lubowa hospital on Monday April 15, 2024, as part of investigations into findings by the Auditor General that Shs286 billion has so far been paid in excess for no works done at Lubowa.
The inspection issue came in after George Otim, Commissioner Health Infrastructure at the Ministry of Health denied assertions made in the Auditor General’s report that the Ministry of Health had no access to the Lubowa site and that Shs286 billion was paid in excess.
This prompted the Committee to ask Otim to make a statement with Parliament CID ahead of the Committee’s planned oversight visit to Lubowa next week.
“I had full access to the Lubowa site and I am disputing the assertion by the Auditor General. I am not aware of any overpayment, I paid for works implemented,” said Otim.
“The agreement was not for you to pay per schedule. The schedules were there, but before each promissory note, to be issued, there was a requirement for the certificate of completion of works done certified by you. Whose interests were you protecting? We depended on you solely, you were our eyes, eyes onsite and the Auditor noted there was an overpayment. You caused a financial loss, on the basis of your signature, the Accountant General went ahead to actualize and pay. You were entrusted with the duty to protect the interest of Ugandans and you failed,” said Muwanga Kivumbi (Butambala County).
The Auditor General, John Muwanga in his report noted that through a minute dated January 11, 2022, the owner’s engineer had certified only 23% of the completed works valued at $57,477,000 causing possible overpayment of $76,088,208.28 approximately Shs286 billion.
The report also noted a total of seven promissory notes worth $133,156,208.23 (Shs476.5 billion) had since been paid by government to the Lubowa project and the 8th promissory note worth $22.7 million (Shs88.971 billion) was scheduled for redemption on December 31, 2023 thus bringing the total paid to Shs600.858 billion, if you factor in the latest exchange rate.
Nandala Mafabi (Budadiri West) however, asked the Committee not to lump all the blame on the mess at Lubowa at only the Ministry of Health, saying Parliament too carries a blame on how the money for Lubowa was approved.
“The day we passed the money for Lubowa, we had refused it three times and I am very eager to get the real report because we were told that people wouldn’t be going out of the country that we will be treated here in Lubowa and that it would be important for the Ministry of Finance to approve money. Every now and then, they are bringing money for supplementary, we are approving and not asking what has been done first. I am interested in this project and how we approved this money, it was in the wrong way. People just took money,” said Mafabi.
