By AndrewIrumba
Kampala:Things are turning from bad to worse for Experito Kagole Kivumbi, the Permanent Secretary to the Judiciary, after he failed to show accountability for over Shs34.8 billion government funds.
The Public Accounts Committee led by Nathan Nandala Mafabi on Friday directed Kagole to avail the Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) with bank statements pertaining to how he transacted the contentious Shs34 billion.
The committee also directed Kagole to avail the CIID with accountabilities of another Shs800 million which he says was allegedly returned to the PS from the Transport Department in the financial year 2017/2018.
He also demands accountability of Shs841.6 million which was retained on the Judiciary Accounts as at end of the Financial Year 2017/2018.
Kagole is required to provide the documents to Detective Assistant Inspector of Police Olwach Michael and Detective Sargent, Tumusiriza Nathan, accompanied with the list of staff members who were advanced money, their personal Bank Account details and Bank Statements.
The payment of the Shs32.8 billion advance to judicial staff was raised by the Auditor General in his report for the financial year ended June 30, 2018.
The irregularity was discovered by PAC while scrutinizing queries by the Auditor General in relation to money that was wrongly expended by the Judiciary without appropriately applying the Chart of Accounts.
However, while appearing before PAC early this week, Kagole said that the money had been spent on Court operational funds, mediation costs, Court sessions, imprest, locus visits, HIV medical allowances and expenditure for Monitoring and Evaluation.
He has since played ping-pong with the Committee, until Nandala and other PAC members decided to involve the CID in the matter.
Contrary to Kagole’s statement, Nandala said that scrutiny of a detailed document indicating how the funds had been spent revealed that some of the funds had been wired to individual accounts of different Judiciary officers, and Justices for reasons including office operational funds, payment of tuition, medical fees among others. Nandala also noted that the development correlates with the information provided by a whistleblower to the committee.
Nandala required Kagole to give a detailed statement on the matter and any other staff relevant statement to the investigators.
According to the Auditor General, the Shs841.6 million was on the Registrar High Court Stanbic Bank account number 9030005677261 (521.4 million) and the Judicial Studies Institute (JSI) account number in Stanbic Bank (320.1 million).
“There is a risk of spending unappropriated funds and I further verified and noted that management did not obtain the authority to retain to retain the unspent balances,” said Muwanga.
According to his earlier written submissions to PAC, Kagole explains that a total of 521.4 million reflected in the Registrar High Court account was committed to the travel abroad expenses for the Judges and Magistrates who were set to travel to Australia for an International Judges’ and Magistrates’ Conference and for operations of the Chambers of the Chief Justice.
In relation to funds retained on the Judicial Studies Institute, Kagole says that he guided the Executive Director on the matter and that the money was returned to the Consolidated Funs on January 9, 2019.
