URA tasked to produce lost agreement papers of Shs101.5m UNCD grant

By Francis Lubega

11^th July 2023

The Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) has been grilled on the lost agreement documents used to receive a grant from both World Bank-WB and United Nations Capital Development-UNCD.

This was after the Parliamentary Committee on Commissions, statutory Authorities and State Enterprises-COSASE found out in the auditor general report of the financial year ended 2021/22 that URA received, spent off budget and refused to disclose the specific activities of expenditure.

URA first received 101.5 million shillings from UNCD and USD 113,555 from WB and spent it without parliamentary approval as per the Public Finance Management Act.

When the committee chaired by Joel Ssenyonyi who is also Nakawe West MP further squeezed the Authority led by the Commissioner General John Musinguzi, the commissioner legal services in URA Patience Tumusiime acknowledged that documents relating to the agreement got lost in the process but promised to look for any if possible.

However, the chairperson of the committee Ssenyonyi directed the URA boss Musinguzi to search for all relevant documents relating to the received grant and the activities spent and submit it to the committee by Wednesday.

On Monday, URA management was put to a task to explain how their budget increased beyond what was approved for expenditure by parliament after the Auditor General’s report showed that the authority spent 34 billion shillings more than the 534 billion shillings allocated to it in the financial year 2021/22.

END