Last month on July 8, government officially launched the disbursement of COVID-19 relief cash to vulnerable Ugandans. About 500,000 beneficiaries were targeted by government to help them survive the 42-day lockdown period that ended last week on Friday.
While appearing before joint parliamentary committees of Public Accounts and the Local Government, Henry Musasizi, the state minister for Finance revealed that government spent a total of Shs 2.854 billion on administrative costs including sending fees in the process of dispatching Shs50 billion COVID-19 relief cash to the beneficiaries.
For starters, Government through the Ministry of Gender worked with telecom companies Airtel and MTN and Post Bank to make transfers of the Covid-19 relief cash. And according to the figures presented before the committees, Shs 50.645 billion was transferred to the Ministry of Gender account in Post Bank.
However, MPs led by the chairperson of the Local Government Accounts committee, Ojara Martin Mapenduzi wondered how government spent almost Shs3b on costs. The committees tasked the minister to avail them the breakdown of the costs.
In response Minister Musasizi, asked for more time to compile all the details of the costs as he had not moved with them. The committee gave him until Wednesday to provide details of the administrative costs in writing.