UGX6Bn Bonus Jus­ti­fi­ca­tion Was Mis­in­ter­preted – IGG

The In­spec­tor Gen­eral of Gov­ern­ment (IGG), Irene Mulyagonja has said the 6 bil­lion shillings paid to 42 gov­ern­ment of­fi­cers was ir­reg­u­lar.

Mulyagonja, who ap­peared be­fore Par­lia­men­t’s com­mit­tee on Com­mis­sions, Statu­tory Au­thor­i­ties and State En­ter­prises (COSASE) on Feb­ru­ary 20, 2017, said the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion that the of­fi­cers did an extra-ordinary job in help­ing gov­ern­ment save a $434 mil­lion cap­i­tal gains tax slapped against Her­itage Oil and Gas Lim­ited does not count.

Quot­ing the Code of Con­duct in the Uganda Pub­lic Ser­vice, Mulyagonja re­vealed that Sec­tion 7 states that an ap­pro­pri­ate re­ward and recog­ni­tion shall be awarded to an of­fi­cer who ex­hibits good eth­i­cal con­duct.

She added that a re­ward shall be ac­corded to the pub­lic of­fi­cer by the re­spon­si­ble of­fi­cer or an appropriate au­thor­ity who has su­per­vi­sion over this per­son.

The IGG stated that the pro­vi­sion in the code of ethics is about eth­i­cal con­duct and not good performance.

“Jus­ti­fi­ca­tion that says good eth­i­cal con­duct en­ti­tles a per­son to an award for bring­ing about a win of a case for the gov­ern­ment of Uganda or pub­lic in­sti­tu­tion is a mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion,” Mulyagonja told the MPs.

She had ap­peared be­fore the com­mit­tee to give her po­si­tion on the pres­i­den­tial hand­shake, which has since its rev­e­la­tion early this year raised pub­lic furor and prompted an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by Par­lia­ment.

Mulyagonja de­clined to give her po­si­tion on the bonus pay­ments, stat­ing that the in­sti­tu­tion can only do so if a fully-fledged in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been ini­ti­ated by the IG­G’s of­fice.

“There must be facts that the IGG has es­tab­lished to give a po­si­tion. The IGG is pro­hib­ited from an­nounc­ing her­self on a mat­ter un­less she has heard from all par­ties so I can’t ren­der an opin­ion on a com­mit­tee probe.  But maybe af­ter the com­mit­tee is done with its probe, we can be al­lowed to con­duct an­other probe,” Mulyagonja stated

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