Drama ensued in Parliament today as Finance Minister, Matia Kasaija was asked to apologize to the Public Accounts Committee-PAC for overreacting when he was contacted by the Committee Chairperson, Angeline Osegge to appear last week. Kasaija made the apology when he appeared on Tuesday afternoon before the angry legislators.
The Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga referred Kasaija to Rules, Discipline and Privileges of parliament last week, after he was implicated in a PAC intermediary report for ignoring summons to testify in the ongoing investigations into the disbursement of US4 200-million loan government secured from the Preferential Trade Area-PTA Bank.
In a report, PAC Chairperson Osegge explained that she personally made a phone call to Kasaija to discuss a way forward but the minister assured her that he wouldn't appear before PAC and hang up. The Trade Committee Chairperson, Kenneth Lubogo supported Osegge, saying Kasaija is poor at attending committee meetings.
He cited a day when Kasaija evaded the committee until the meeting was suspended. On Tuesday however, Kasaija apologized to PAC, saying he had never refused to appear before any committee of parliament.
The scared Minister explained that he is sometimes forced to delegate the state finance ministers to represent him before the Committees because of his busy schedule. Osegge accepted Kasaija's apology but noted that his busy schedule shouldn't fail other people's work.
She asked the minister to make it a point to appear before PAC when summoned since he is the political head of the ministry. The Ministry of Finance is under the spotlight over failure to release the US$ 200-million loan to the rightful beneficiaries even when the money was disbursed by PTA Bank.
The National Medical Stores- NMS needs Shillings 156 billion from the loan to purchase drugs. The money was also meant to finance a shortfall in domestic revenue that was projected at 288 billion Shillings for the 2015/2016 financial year and substitute domestic borrowing to the tune of Shillings 280 billion.
It was also meant to ease finance expenditure pressure resulting from the exchange rate depreciation in the 2015/2016 financial year. However, to date the Ministry has failed to release the Shillings 156 billion meant for NMS despite a financing deficit of Shillings 68 billion due fluctuations in foreign exchange since 2011, which has affected medical supplies to government health facilities.
