Luwero, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | At least fifteen primary school headteachers in Luwero district are in trouble for failing to account for Shillings 81 million disbursed to their schools under the Universal Primary Education programme.
In 2019/20, Luwero district received over Shillings 2.1 billion from the Ministry of Education and Sports to cater for 230 schools. The district deposited the funds into school accounts for the purchase of instructional and scholastic materials, co-curricular activities, contingency expenditure, school management and administration.
However to date, fifteen schools have failed to account for how they utilized Shillings 81,929,956 million disbursed under the programme. The district has withheld the list of the affected headteachers and schools.
But Boniface Ssentongo, a member of Luwero District Public Accounts Committee explains that the Auditor invited the headteachers to account for the funds with supportive documents, which they failed to do.
Ssentongo adds that the Chief Administrative Officer forwarded headteachers to District Public Accounts Committee, which summoned them to defend themselves with documentary proof in vain.
Ssentongo says that as a result, PAC wrote to District Council through the Executive Committee tasking the CAO to recover the funds from headteachers.
Erastus Kibirango, the LC5 chairman of Luwero district presented the recommendations to the council and the councillors resolved that the CAO writes back to the headteachers demanding an explanation why they failed to appear before PAC.
Kibirango says that the affected headteachers have 21 days to submit the accountabilities to PAC or else the district recovers the money from them.
URN has also learnt that the PAC is investigating reports that the district has been paying salaries amounting to over Shillings 40 million to suspected ghost teachers for decades.
Cases of failure to account and paying ghost teachers are not new in Luwero.
In the 2013/14 and 2014/15 financial years, 12 schools failed to account for Shillings 42 million that was disbursed under Universal Primary and Secondary Education programs.
The government also paid Shillings 69 million to none existent teachers in several schools in the Luwero district. It’s unclear whether the funds have ever been recovered.
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URN
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