Shs53 billion paid to ghost workers – report

The Auditor General, Mr John Muwanga has revealed that the country lost Shs53 billion in paying salaries to workers who are either non-existent, dead, retired, or absconded from duty.

While handing over the Auditor General’s report for the last financial year to the speaker of Parliament Anita Among, Muwanga, noted that in February, he carried out a special audit of the salary payroll and validation of government employees on 367 entities.

The assistant auditor general, Mr Edward Akol says that a total of 358,753 who appeared for the validation exercise presented all the pre-requisite documents and were fully verified while 25,439 were partially verified.

Akol says 7,744 individuals whose names were not on the base payroll appeared for the validation exercise, presented all pre-requisite documents, and were recommended to be included on the validated payroll.

“The exercise revealed a total of 10,192 employees who were recommended for removal from the government payroll having been confirmed either dead, absconded, or retired by the time of validation,” Akol said.

After receiving the report, Among promised to have the report scrutinized on time and has tasked the new Leader of Opposition Joel Senyonyi on the same.

Written by Prossy Kisakye