BY DAMALI MUKHAYE
165 Accounting Officer from the Central Governments and District Local Governments have been declared ineligible by the Ministry of Finance after they failed to respond to some of the audit queries.
The names are contained in the list that was submitted to Parliament on Thursday by the Minister of Finance Matia Kasaija.
Among the affected include the Executive Director of Uganda National Roads Authority, Allen Kagina, The Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Education, Alex Kakooza, The Permanent Secretary/Secretary to Judiciary, and Pius Bigirimana among others.
As a practise, Ministry of Finance gives any illegible Accounting Officer a second chance to respond to audit queries and when they (Ministry of Finance) are satisfied, the Accounting Officer is reinstated.
If the Accounting Officer fails to respond to queries appropriately, they are dropped as section 11 (2) (g) of the Public, Finance and Management Act stipulates.
This means that the 165 affected officers will be given a chance to respond to those audit queries.
The letter containing names of affected 165 officers signed by Patrick Ocailap on behalf of the permanent secretary at Ministry of finance has since been handed over to clerk to parliament.