Godfrey Sasaga, director citizenship & immigration said Shs 52bn for buying biometric kits was hijacked by ISO following a cabinet order
The directorate of citizenship and immigration control failed to exhaustively account for over Shs 52bn advanced for the purchase of the biometric kits to be used in the national identity card enrollment project.
Appearing before the parliamentary public accounts committee (PAC) today, immigration officials said the procurement process was ‘hijacked’ by the Internal Security Organisation (ISO) who should explain better how the money was spent.
At least Shs 52bn was spent on the purchase of biometric kits and other equipment. They included laptops, cameras, finger print scanner, signature pads among others. In his FY 2014/15 report, the auditor general, John Muwanga noted that the providers of the kits presented a lump sum figure of Shs 52.2bn as opposed to the unit cost of each kit.
“This made it difficult to make a comparison of the bids. Further, it was not possible to compute the liquidated damages as a result of late delivery of 3246 spare batteries and 3258 USB hubs”, the auditor general’s report notes in part.
Godfrey Sasaga, the director citizenship and immigration distanced his team from the purchase of the biometrics kits, saying the procurement was hijacked by ISO following a cabinet resolution that reasoned that the issuance of the national IDs was a national security matter.
PAC chairperson, Angelline Osegge tasked the immigration officials to name the items in the kits in vain.
“Whether it is technical or scientific, there is no product called a ‘kit’. Here you were buying an item. The item constituted a kit, so [you should] have included the prices of items in that kit. Now, what you have given us does not even give us that information”, said Osegge.
“I think that is where the procurement problem was and I admit there was that kind of gap in all this information [provided]”, Sasaga responded.
Gerald Karuhanga, the Ntungamo municipality MP accused the immigration officials of providing the committee with incomplete documents.
“No, no. No. This is very embarrassing because you can imagine item A; laptop Poland 4,258, unit price [not] included. Finger print scanner unit price [not] included, signature price [not] included – nothing. You don’t want anybody to know the unit price of any these items”, Karuhanga charged.
MPs blamed the immigration official for negligence for alleged failure to pay attention to costs of particular items, which could have cost taxpayers loss of money.
“You’re the accounting officer, you sign off this money. So for you, what were you signing off for?” Karuhanga asked.
“For a kit!” Sasaga answered.
“A kit?!”, asked Karuhanga.
“Yes” Sasaga answered in the affirmative.
“Even if they gave you an empty box? For you are just interested in a kit”, Karuhanga further prodded.
“The kit had components in it. The problem and I agree with you, is that at the procurement level…” said Sasaga before he was cut short in his submission.
“Mr Sasaga we are talking about Shs 52bn, so you ought to have been interested in what was in this that we are paying for” Karuhanga said.
PAC chairperson Osegge noted that ISO doesn’t have the prerogative to flout procurement laws, saying they will not hide under classified expenditure.
Karuhanga said according to the documents before the committee, the procurement process was handled by Deborah Katuramu, the secretary in the Office of the President and Dan Mugisha, the ISO contract manager. The committee said it would resolve on how to proceed on the matter.
@Uganda Radio Network
