Following a story run by this website on Monday, May 10, suggesting that 7 officials from Ministry of Local Government had mismanaged shs. 200 million withdrawn from finance Taxpayers Registration Expansion Project (TREP) account.
This website in pursuit of more details has since established that the facts published earlier were to a greater extent inaccurate and couldn’t amount to a conclusion as the headline of the story read. “Scandal: How 7 Local Government Ministry top Officials shared Shs.200M ‘TREP’ project Funds.”
We have gone deeper to investigate the matter by conducting several interviews with many officials in the ministry, and below is what we ascertained as facts.
Shs 200 million has never been withdrawn from TREP Account. The system can’t allow to withdraw UgX 40M per month without written permission from the Accountant General.
Therefore, it’s not possible that that colossal sum 200M can be withdrawn in any of the Ministry’s account.
TREP has never been before either the Parliamentary Budget Committee or any other committee of Parliament for budget allocation consideration.
The TREP Coordinator in the Ministry has never attended any committee of Parliament to defend TREP or PRELNOR. The resources of TREP are appropriated and accounted for under the URA vote.
The US (F&A) does not initiate payments. Payments are initiated by Heads of Departments.
The IGG’s office has never investigated TREP activities in the Ministry, neither was the IGG’s office compromised in the investigations. Further the TREP Coordinator isn’t under investigations.
It’s not possible that the the Acting Commissioner Urban Inspection can convene and chair a finance related meeting where the PS (Accounting Officer) is in attendance.
Funds withdrawn under TREP are used to finance local revenue administration and mobilization activities in 10 Cities and 24 Municipalities across the country. And they must be accounted for within 3months upon receipt.
Therefore, the claim that MPs on Budget Committee of Parliament were financed with shs 60 million as an inducement by Ministry of Local Government is not true.
The publication cast the Ministry in bad light particularly the officials named in the story.
We regret the damage this story has caused to seven officials of the Ministry.
We reassure our readers that this website is professional and exercises the tenets of journalism.
