Kampala Capital City Authority Executive director has denied knowledge of the report by the Auditor General implicating her in financial fraud.
Jennifer Musisi says the Auditor General has not released any report for the year 2010-2011 but they received a management letter on Tuesday seeking clarifications from her office.
On Tuesday, the Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago released to the media what he called an audit report by the Auditor General that revealed massive fraud and hefty payments to Musisi’s support staff as over time.
The 151 page report yet to be officially made public showed that Musisi was paid over time worth over 20 million shillings for the period March to 30th June 2011 and yet she is a public officer with a fixed salary which automatically exempts her from overtime payment.
But at a press conference on Wednesday, Musisi argued that the management letter did not have a signature and she does not know how Lukwago landed on it. She adds that the auditor general in the letter stated that it was not an audit report and whoever used it apart from the accounting officer, he would not be held liable.
Musisi says it’s absurd that she can be accused of eating 20 million shillings yet she was the one who instigated the investigations and keeps getting bribery attempts to sign documents in the city.
//Cue in: It would be very silly of me…”
Cue out:…expensive in this city.”//
Musisi adds that when she took office in the last two months of the financial year 2010-2011, she discovered many discrepancies to which she ordered investigations to be carried out by police.
She also explains that she was given an appointment instrument in April 2011, took over office on April 19, but had started working after Easter without an appointment letter until December.
The team that was computing her allowances put an amount away for her pending communication from government. However, after she received her appointment letter, she computed her allowances and returned it to government.
//Cue in: Up to December last year…”
Cue out: monies that were due to me.”//
According to the report, irregular payments were made to five former Uganda Revenue Authority officials on the KCCA transitional team. The officials reportedly drew two salaries from both organisations yet they were serving KCCA in full capacity until their deletion from URA in the 2011-12 financial year. The five officials earned 78.4 million shillings from KCCA irregularly in that period.
Musisi, however, says KCCA had no structure and no set salaries which forced her to request for URA staff on voluntary basis who worked extra time during public holidays, weekends and odd hours thus their hefty allowances.
She adds that they agreed with government that an interim arrangement was made since they were not public servants with KCCA until September 2011 when Directors were appointed. To date, they still await the public service to provide them with a structure so as to employ more staff.
She also insists that the complaints about how much money is paid to her support staff are not worth it since they still work long hours and all politicians are doing is sensationalizing matters.
