Probe into foreign aid irregularities in Uganda
Monday, March 03, 2014
A criminal investigation is under way in Uganda following a second
case of financial irregularities in the disbursement of foreign aid.
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By Conor Ryan
Investigative Correspondent
The case has led auditors at the Department of Foreign Affairs to
suggest that lessons had not been learned from the last high-profile
fraud case.
That incident saw a sophisticated fraud being used to steal €4m in aid
supplied by the Government to a programme run through the prime
minister's office in Uganda.
The latest case involves a programme funded by Ireland and five other
European countries. It was managed on the ground by the Danish embassy
in Kampala. It is not known if the financial irregularities identified
involved fraud or poor accounting.
The Department's auditors' report said concerns have now been
appropriately addressed but when the alarm bells sounded, the
information was not shared properly. It said this was particularly
troublesome given the procedures adopted after the fraud uncovered in
2012.
"The emergence of a subsequent separate instance of fraud in Uganda...
gave the audit committee cause for concern insofar as itsignalled that
the need for vigilance had not permeated throughout the organisation,"
it said.
A statement from the department said the audit that had discovered the
irregularities had been commissioned by the six partner countries and
Irish Aid was pressing for a resolution.
Following the report, it had taken six weeks for the audit conclusions
to get from the partner organisations in Uganda to Irish Aid
headquarters.
The funding related to a programme operated between 2007 and 2011.
It provided grants to 29 Ugandan NGOs. The department said the
capacity of the Irish embassy in Uganda has been strengthened and an
evaluation of an intensive programme of assessments of spending
through Irish Aid will be published shortly.
"Several steps have been taken by the department to ensure that the
financial and risk management systems used to oversee and manage
Ireland's aid programme are strong and robust enough to operate
successfully in very challenging environments.
"The ambassadors in the overseas missions that manage Irish Aid
programmes have undertaken a full review of their management and risk
assessment systems," it said.
The continued support of Uganda has been the subject of particular
scrutiny. Last week, Labour TD Dominic Hannigan called for the
Government to stop its €20m support programme because of a decision to
vote through a law that jailed gay people because of their sexuality.
"We can't support the Government of a country if that Government turns
it back on a minority of its population," he said.
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