At least fifteen primary school head teachers in Luwero district are likely to face prosecution after failing to account for Ugx 81 million that was distributed among their schools under the Universal Primary Education (UPE) programme.
Luwero district received over Ugx 2.1 billion from the Ministry of Education and Sports to facilitate 230 schools, in the 2019/20 academic year.
The district deposited the funds into school accounts to enable the purchase of instructional and scholastic materials, co-curricular activities, contingency expenditure, school management and administration.
However, fifteen schools have failed to account for how they have utilized Ugx 81,929,956 disbursed under the program to date. The district has withheld the list of the affected headteachers and schools.
According to Boniface Ssentongo, a member of Luwero District Public Accounts Committee, the Auditor invited the head teachers to account for the funds with supportive documents, which they failed to do.
Ssentongo adds that the Chief Administrative Officer forwarded headteachers to District Public Accounts Committee, which summoned them to defend themselves with documentary proof in vain.
Ssentongo says that as a result, PAC wrote to District Council through the Executive Committee tasking the CAO to recover the funds from head teachers.
Erastus Kibirango, the LC5 chairman of Luwero district presented the recommendations to the council and the councilors resolved that the CAO writes back to the head teachers demanding an explanation why they failed to appear before PAC.
Kibirango says that the affected head teachers have 21 days to submit the accountabilities to PAC or else the district recovers the money from them.
The PAC is still investigating reports that the district has been paying salaries amounting to over Ugx 40 million to suspected ghost teachers for decades.
Cases of failure to account and paying ghost teachers are not new in Luwero. In the 2013/14 and 2014/15 financial years, 12 schools failed to account for Shillings 42 million that was disbursed under Universal Primary and Secondary Education programs.