As the country is still coming to terms with the Shs6 billion oil cash payout, another scandal has been unearthed in the Ministry of Education.
According to available information, the Ministry of Education spent Shs14 billion on a single workshop that was intended to skill teachers of vocational training schools ( BTVET).
This misappropriation was revealed by the Minister of State for Planning, David Bahati, as he appeared before Budget Committee of Parliament.
Mr Bahati who was tasked to explain how the past budget has been handled, shocked the committee members when he revealed that the whooping Shs14 billion was spent on the workshop held in Bushenyi district.
According to information that was revealed to the parliament committee on budget, the workshop was attended by only 120 teachers.
When we did a fact check withh quick mathematics, the huge sum of money means that at least Shs168 million was spent on each teacher that attended the workshop although it is not clear whether the money was spent on the intended job or whether it was stolen by top officials in the education ministry.
The MPs then accused the ministry of submitting an inconclusive report “contrary to section 18 of the Public Finance Management Act.”
Mr Bahati, however, maintained that whatever the committee requires is contained in the report.
“We have presented everything you wanted us to present. It could be an internal issue if you haven’t read but for us everything is here,” he said.
Section 18 of the Public Finance Management Act requires the Finance minister to, among other rafts of presentations, report to Parliament on the financial and non-financial performance of the annual budget.
What we know
The ministry is headed by First Lady Hon. Janet Kataaha Museveni and is deputized by the Minister of State for Higher Education is Hon. Dr. John Chrysostom Muyingo while the Minister of State for Primary Education is Hon. RoseMary Nansubuga Seninde.
The Minister of State for Sports is Hon. Charles Bakabulindi and the Permanent Secretary is Mr. Kakooza Alex.
Recently while before the Parliament’s Education Committee, Ms Janet Museveni revealed that government has backtracked on its earlier pledge to provide sanitary pads to school going girls so that they do no run out of school when their menstrual periods start.
“I want you all to understand that we have not got the funding for this in our budget yet,” she told the MPs on the committee.
The promise President Museveni while campaigning in Lango sub region in 2015 was supposed to be effected in the 2017/2018 financial year budget in which the sector has been allocated Shs2.8trillion.
The huge chunk of the money, government says, is going towards the wages of the teachers and other staff across the country.
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