By URN
Makerere University erroneously paid 386 million Shillings to retired staff following delay to delete their names from the university payroll, the Auditor General’s report for financial 2015/2016 indicates.
“The University delayed to delete 14 retired members of staff from the payroll and as a result continued to pay the retired staff salary totalling to UGX 386,790,968 and there was no evidence of services provided by the retired staff,” the report reads in part.
The report also faults the university management for incurring over-payment to staff totalling to sh 172.5 million Shilings. According to the report, the amounts overpaid to staff included in the university financial statement under employment cost “were irregular and therefore should be recovered.”
The report faults Makerere administration for failure to account for 882.3 million Shillings advanced to university staff and colleges to carry out various activities. The unaccounted for money was sent to the College of Computing and Information Science (COCIS), College of Natural Sciences (CONAS), College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences (CAES), School of Law and Presidential Initiative on Science and Technology Projects.
“Paragraph 4.6.4 of Makerere University finance procedure manual, 2014 requires advances to be accounted for within fourteen (14) days of completion of the activity and in any case not later than 60 days…in the absence of relevant accountability documents, it was not possible to confirm that the funds were used for intended purposes,” the report says.
On tuition collected from students for the financial year 2015/2016, the report shows that whereas the university cash book puts revenue collected from tuition and functional fees at 86.6 billion Shillings, the financial statements indicated a figure of 87.9 billion creating an unreconciled variance of sh 1.1 billion Shillings.
“I was not provided with satisfactory explanation regarding this discrepancy. Under the circumstance, I am unable to establish the accuracy of the revenue reflected in the financial statements,” the report reads.
After reviewing Makerere university revenue collection cycle, the Auditor General also notes that “there is no clear trail to link a payment in a bank to the student ledger within the Integrated Tertiary Software (ITS) system” because bank transactions are identified with students number whereas ITS system uses student registration number. It was also discovered that payments in bank made by cheques or in blocks have to be manually posted in the Integrated Tertiary Software “creating a room for unauthorised changes.”
