The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament has directed the Permanent Secretary of the Judiciary Pius Bigirimana to, with immediate effect, publish the lists of people whose bail cash totaling to UGX18.3b has not yet been refunded.
The Committee Chaired by Budadiri West Member of Parliament, Nandala Mafabi was today interacting with Bigirimana accompanied by other officials from the Judiciary over queries in the Auditor General’s report of the Financial Year 2019/2020.
The MPs want the names of claimants, the bail amount each deposited and the court where the bail was granted be published in newspapers and on local radio stations across the country so that these people can ask for their refund within 30 days of the notice.
Auditor General John Muwanga in his report queried the delay by the Judiciary to refund bail money to the litigants and their sureties after they are either acquitted or win criminal and civil offenses for which they were arrested.
The courts in Uganda while granting bail to charged suspects in any criminal or civil matter, Court may grant the application by bonding the applicant and sureties in cash or none cash.
Much as the Judiciary claimed to have paid at least UGX14.9 billion refund to claimants through advocate firms during the year under review, the Auditor General report indicates that there was no proof of payment because the Accounting Officer did not avail the auditors with copies of the powers of attorney by claimants authorizing their lawyers to receive the refund on their behalf.
“However, the powers of Attorney by the claimants authorizing law firms to receive money on their behalf were not availed for verification. Besides, some payments lacked supporting documents such as original general receipts and evidence of banking the money” the report reads in part.
Nandala told the Permanent Secretary that trouble looms for him as an Accounting Officer of the Judiciary if claimants come up saying they never received the money from the law firms on whose accounts bail refund was banked without availing to him any powers of Attorney.
“If there was payment made without powers of Attorney, then you are in big trouble. How do you pay without such documents? So you have to advertise in the papers the names of those who have been paid the UGX18 billion. We want to know who the claimants are” Nandala said.
The MPs also ordered the publication of the details of a fraud in which some officials in the Judiciary connived to get a fake court order resulting into the payment of UGX1.6 billion to Debt Service Company purporting to collect the money on behalf of former employees of Uganda Electricity Distribution Company Limited (UEDCL). This transaction was intercepted by the Eco Bank on 8th July 2020 and the money recovered intact.
Bigirimana, who promised to publish the details of this case, stated that the interception of the money happened after the Secretary to the Treasury Keith Muhakanizi detected a fraud and alerted the Judiciary.
Uganda’s Corporate Finance and Capital Markets Luminary, Miriam Ekirapa Musaali, Passes On“From the information I got, there was money which was deposited and was recovered by the Court. A general receipt which I saw was issued and everything looked perfect, but we discovered that the process was wrong. We actually found that the court order was also forged,” Bigirimana said.
He said that some of the people who were arrested confessed that they had forged documents to secure the UGX1.6 billion.
The Chief Registrar Sarah Langa Siu told the MPs that as a new administration, they are toiling with correcting the wrongs that their predecessors made in handling the refund of bail cash and security deposits.
“We may not produce those records tomorrow because we have just come to Office and there is a lot of information we don’t have. Also the claimants do not know the process of claiming refund and we are now sensitizing people on this” she said.
Bigirimana was transferred from the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development to the Judiciary in July 2019 following the suspension of Kagole Kivumbi who has himself faced the wrath of PAC over accountability issues.
Meanwhile, Langa was appointed Chief Registrar last year having grown through the ranks from when she joined the Judiciary in 2005 as a Magistrate Grade 1.
The Committee also directed Bigirimana to publish in the media the evidence showing how the Judiciary has been transferring unclaimed bail and security deposits to the Consolidated Fund; and, a system showing how people can claim for their bail refunds.
The Auditor General was concerned with the time it takes for a claimant to receive his or her cash after the process is initiated, something that shows a lapse in the systems being used by the Judiciary to repay people who deposited money to secure bail.
“It was also observed that the time taken to process a refund to claimants ranged between one week to 46 months (4 years), from the date when a court order is issued to the date when the expenditure voucher is prepared and approved for payment” Muwanga noted in his report.
Meanwhile, Bigirimana re-echoed the persistent plea by the Judiciary asking Parliament to allocate money for the recruitment of more Judicial officers to dispose of the ever-growing case backlog in the Courts.
