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Following misleading online news reports that pipped up Monday morning, it has emerged that the Ministry of Finance and economic planning more than 6 months ago retracted it’s September 22 2023 letter stopping Uganda Communications Commission, UCC, from using some of the money it collects (Non-Tax Revenue or NTR) to fund related activities implemented by its mother Ministry of ICT & national guidance.
The stale online news reports of Monday showed there was a crisis of some degree to the extent that the secretary to treasury Ramadan Ggoobi had blocked the ministry of ICT & national guidance from using funds collected by UCC to do government work, in spite of the memorandum of understanding the two entities have in place.
It was stale news because the letter the reporters depended on to write their story was an old document of almost one year ago and it was long retracted and overtaken by events. The letter was dated September 22 of 2023, which is coming to a year.
That letter was retracted and replaced with another letter by Ramadan Ggoobi, dated February 29 of 2024. In that new letter, Secretary to treasury explained that new facts had emerged showing that it was okay for the arrangement between UCC and the ministry of ICT to continue.
Ramadan Ggoobi says that the reservations he had at first had been clarified by state house anti-corruption unit headed by General Isoke Henry, who had investigated and cleared the arrangement to go on.
He had suspected duplication of work whereby he thought that the ministry of ICT had been using money from UCC to fund activities which are already funded by parliament during appropriation; which turned out to be untrue.
Ggoobi had also been concerned that in its letter to him of 15/8/2023, requesting for permission to use Ugx6.7bn from UCC, the ministry of ICT had referred to the MoU whose copy they didn’t attach. Those are the two main concerns which had forced the secretary to treasury to block the ministry of ICT from using UCC NTR to do government activities.
And the moment his concerns were addressed through clarification from the anti-corruption unit, the secretary to treasury saw no reason to continue blocking the arrangement. That’s how the letter of February 29 of 2024 was written lifting the ban.
The main condition that was set was for UCC to first remit such money meant to support the mother ministry’s work, to the consolidated fund first from where it can be appropriated by parliament to come to the mother ministry in a more transparent manner.
The other condition of the secretary to treasury is that the non-tax revenue coming from Uganda Communications Commission should be based on the ministry’s work plans showing very clearly what the different ministry departments, plus commissioners heading such departments, are planning to do and deliver results about in that finance year.
So, what all this shows is that there was no basis for the stale online news that was produced on Monday because it was based on a stale document of almost one year ago, which has already been over taken by events and replaced with the 29/2/2024 letter allowing the NTR arrangement to continue.
Such fake online news reporting is deliberate and aimed at creating a false narrative in the hope that it can bias and influence the appointing authority not to renew the contract for ministry of ICT & national guidance permanent secretary Professor Aminah Zawedde, which is being handled by public service commission.
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