By The Insight Post
The Auditor General, John Muwanga, in an audit report presented before Parliament of Uganda in January this year, for the financial year ending June 2022 illustrated how the Uganda Railway Corporation, the institution mandated to cater for the Ugandan Railway Transport and marine transport in the central corridor route neglected more than 2500 railway materials, leaving the country lose more than Ugx 24.8 billion.
The 24.8 billion catered for the neglected Ugx 12.8 billion that was foregone by the institution to get a Lugazi (Buikwe) based factory found with stolen railway materials to pay for the exhibits found. The Corporation instead settled for Ugx 736 million.
AG Muwanga wrote; “despite the strides, more than 1,946 stolen railway materials equivalent to UGX.12, 391,542,000 were recovered from a Steels factories in Lugazi. However, URC entered into an out of court settlement and was compensated only Ugx 735,757,503 resulting into a loss of Ugx 12.8 billion.”
Also, the Auditor General also noted that there has been negligence, irresponsibility on the side of the Stanley Ssendegeya led URC that resulted to losses of more than Ugx 12 billion on the rehabilitation of the Tororo-Gulu Railway which undertaken by a contractor who later abandoned the site due to no pay, leaving 136,416 of the re-usable items equivalent to Euro.3,083,846.54 lost.
The losses, negligence and irresponsibility, according to a member of the Uganda Railway Corporation who asked not to be named raises glaring signs of poor institutional governance and deliberate attempts by URC to fail the ongoing railway project across the country.
“That’s one of the key issues we discussed in our board meeting held in Jinja. How can an institution fail even primarily on keeping the already available utilities and materials? Something must be deeper than what we see and as a board, we need to take immediate action.” He said.
How the materials, money was lost
According to John Linon Ssengendo, the communications officer at the Uganda Railway Corporation, the institution followed a court ruling and the fact that not all the Railway materials were found in one of the factories in Lugazi, Buikwe District.
The communication officer also indicated that Uganda Railway Corporation did not lose up to Ugx 12.8 billion as communicated in the Auditor General’s report. However, only the machines found at the factory cost such an amount (Ugx 736 million) as determined by the court of Judicature. He indicated that the Ugx 12.8 billion was the total loss caused to the Uganda Railway line with the theft of the materials.
Also, Ssengendo told this website that he was not conversant with the delays that caused the financial loss of more that Ugx 12 billion on abandoned materials meant to repair and upgrade the Tororo – Gulu railway line.
The Government of Uganda recently reinstituted the Uganda Railways Corporation after years of transferring its services to a private entity, Rift Valley Railways failed the Uganda Railway line project. However, since the revitalization of URC, the institution has been facing severe lashes over poor governance.
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