PAC calls for a list of those who owe government for taking their ranches

By; Francis Lubega

27^th November 2019

PAC has directed the ministry of lands to submit a list of individuals who owe government money for taking up their ranches.

During an interaction with the ministry of lands officials led by the permanent secretary Dorcus Okalany with the PAC committee to respond to the auditor general’s queries for 2017/2018 FY in which it was noted that the ministry was irregularly incurring domestic arrears outside the approved estimates appropriated parliament.

The auditor general noted that domestic arrears increased from 9 billion shillings in the previous year to 31 billion shillings mainly due to delayed settlement of rancher’s compensation claims dating as far as back 2005 which he says this kind of trend is unsustainable.

The auditor general also accused the accounting officer for not adhering to the commitment control system of government that is meant to stop entities from committing government beyond the level of availed resources.

The chairperson of the committee Nandala Mafabi asked the permanent secretary Dorcus Okalany to clarify on these domestic arrears.

Okalany informed the committee that the increase in domestic arrears is attributed to the ongoing re-evaluation of ranches due to delayed payment and says that they are requesting for more funds from ministry of finance to enable them clear all the arrears so that they do not have to incur more arrears in delayed compensation of the ranchers.

This prompted the committee to demand that a full list of the ranchers, who have been paid and those who are yet to be paid and how much each rancher owes government.