Parliament to deal directly with Auditor General’s report

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Parliament’s Accountability Committees will scrutinize the Auditor General’s report on the treasury memoranda, moving away from the previous procedure which entailed submission of the report to the office of the Speaker.

The Deputy Speaker, Thomas Tayebwa made the communication to Members of Parliament during the Tuesday Plenary sitting. He said the report of the Auditor General on the treasury memoranda should be tabled on the floor of Parliament, not submitted to the Speaker of Parliament.

The treasury memoranda is a report made to Parliament by the Executive highlighting actions taken on recommendations made in reports passed and adopted by Parliament.

The new development means that this report on the treasury memoranda will now be tabled in Parliament and referred to the relevant accountability committees for scrutiny.

Tayebwa said he chaired a meeting attended by the representative from the office of the Auditor General, Accountability Committee Chairpersons, the Committee on Rules and Privileges, and Parliament’s technical staff, and it was discovered that it was necessary to scrutinize the Auditor General’s report on the treasury memoranda to complete the audit cycle.

“We have resolved that the report of the Auditor General on the treasury memoranda should be tabled on the floor of Parliament, not submitted to the Speaker of Parliament. Things are done here in Plenary in the open, not in offices and then the accountability committees should look through and see whether indeed their recommendations were handled and if they were not, then we can get a mechanism to ensure that these matters are followed up,” he said.

The Deputy Speaker said that the decision was welcomed by the Auditor General, adding that the process will tackle the challenge of recurrent accountability queries.

According to Tayebwa, Rule 221 of the Rules of Procedure refers to the report on the treasury memoranda to the Auditor General for management.

“I had to spend the weekend to dig deep into the Hansard, seeing previously how all these have been handled and I could not get any precedent,” he said.

Tayebwa added that more reforms on accountability committees will be made, arguing that many gaps have been identified.

“For example, each chairperson determines how they process the reports of the Auditor General, if we got the audit handbook of parliament and made it an appendix to the Rules of Procedure, then the chairpersons will have to follow that. We are going to see a way of improving so that we have reports that are substantive,” he said.

Henry Musasizi, the Minister of State for Finance said the development is a step in the right direction

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