PAC orders Makerere to submit responses on 32 donor-funded projects

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Members of Parliament have directed Makerere University to account for donor-funded projects by the end of this week.

Public Accounts Committee (Central) chairperson, Muhammad Muwanga Kivumbi, issued the directive on Thursday, May 29, 2025. The order followed the failure of Vice Chancellor Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe and secretary Yusuf Kiranda to appear before the committee.

“We don’t want to look bad, let members rest. But now, we agree on you meeting the Friday deadline for all project responses. Those fellows have experts; let them go and burn the midnight candle and by 5:00 pm, which is the close of working hours, we have responses to thirty-two projects,” Kivumbi ruled.

“Those that were audited on the face of it are fourteen. But one project called NORHED II has nineteen projects. All were audited. Unfortunately, you did not submit audit responses; we have zero. So the number of projects audited at the university becomes thirty-two,” he elaborated.

He added that the committee has already set aside next Monday to scrutinise the matter and expects all Makerere project auditors to be present.

Backlash

Earlier, Kivumbi had expressed frustration with University Secretary Yusuf Kiranda, who is reportedly abroad on official duty, for failing to notify the committee in time and for delegating his deputy, Simon Kizito, to appear in his place.

“This is an election year; we are working extremely hard. These members, especially from the ruling party (NRM), are in the middle of their political survival. Collection of nomination forms is on Monday; you can imagine some are going through grassroots elections. But, you know, you beg them to come, and all of us need to be in full campaign gear by July or August. So, I don’t want this committee to have work,” he said.

“Last election, I was in a budget committee. It was a bit under Covid. Only four of us survived out of the entire committee because we kept ourselves busy here to ensure that we give the country a budget under Covid conditions. So, we could not do much. The members couldn’t go through. When we gathered after elections, it was a sad thing,” Kivumbi added.

The situation was salvaged by an apology from Hellen Nambalirwa Nkabala, the Principal of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, who was standing in for Prof. Nawangwe.

“It is one of those days when life becomes tough. Allow me, on behalf of my team and the substantive office holders, to sincerely apologise. I wish we knew that we could call. But because the University Secretary went out on the 17th and returns today, we were not sure if the acting [officer] could come or not,” Nambalirwa stated.

Audited projects

As of December 2024, only fourteen projects had been audited, according to Auditor General (AG) Edward Akol’s report. These include the Norwegian Programme for Capacity Development in Higher Education and Research for Development (NORHED II). The latter is a six-year flagship initiative by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), which ends in 2026.

The initiative aims to strengthen higher education institutions in developing countries by producing high-quality graduates, conducting impactful research, and promoting inclusive education.

Other projects include the Inclusive Green Economy (IGE-EFD) project, the CashIN Project–Makerere, the SOL initiative, the Integrated Biorepository of H3Africa Uganda, and two additional projects under the Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR), among others.

Leave no stone unturned

Unlike in previous years, PAC has placed greater focus on project oversight.

“When we get audit reports, we get what we call the audited consolidated accounts of the Government. They alerted us to the following facts: one, that we are having sh16 trillion of borrowed money that is undispatched and we are paying all manner of fees. Looking from the audit angle, what are the audit findings that impede agencies that are supposed to implement projects and have no absorption capacity?” he explained.

“We were also alerted to another figure of nearly sh980 billion, something that we are paying annually for consultancies under audit. Every project has an expert of some kind, paid for at World Bank (WB) rates. You will find that some projects have more money in wages than the actual agency. But the question is, you pay all that amount of money but we have not met a single project that is on schedule,” Kivumbi added.