The Public Accounts Committee-PAC has called for forensic investigations into the Integrated Personnel and Payroll System (IPPS) payment system, saying it is erroneous.
It followed a meeting between PAC chaired by Soroti Woman MP, Angeline Osegge and Public Service Ministry Officials led by the Permanent Secretary, Birakwate Musingwiire on Thursday.
The officials had appeared before PAC to respond to queries in the Auditor General’s report for the 2015/201616 and 2016/2017 financial years. During the meeting, MPs realized that there are a lot of gaps and contradicting information in regards to the IPPS.
In his 2016 report, the Auditor General noted that employee records showed errors in the data being maintained on the system in form of personal information like age, year of birth and contractual obligations like tenure of employment and years of employment among others.
He observed that the system shows that some of the employees have worked for over 90 years, others are over 120 years of age while over 28,000 civil servants are on probation.
The Auditor General, John Muwanga noted that despite the fact that government contracted two firms in 2009 to implement the IPPS System at US$ 4.4 m the system is ineffective. Now, the committee has called for a forensic audit into the system, saying it exposes public servants at risk.
The permanent secretary in the ministry of public service Catherine Bitarakwate Musingwiire told the committee members that the implementation of IPPS system was not effective and did not yield the expected benefits.
