The Auditor General in June released a report that indicated fraudulent spending of Covid-19 partial funds.
By Our Reporter
The federation of Small and Medium Enterprises Uganda (SMEs) has threatened to sue government should it fail to account for the funds that have been used in managing covid-19 since it’s outbreak in March 2020.
Addressing Journalists at SMEs offices in Ntinda on Tuesday, John Walugembe the Chairperson of the SMEs body said that the government has to reveal proper accountability of all the money they have spent in the wake of Covid 19 stating that many things have not been looked into yet money has been realised from the government treasury.
“We want them to come up and tell us where the money went because people are suffering yet they claim to have spent our money in things they don’t clearly tell us,” he said.
To realize this, the federation has patterned with a law firm, Open Forum Initiative.
The Auditor General in June released a report that indicated fraudulent spending of Covid-19 partial funds.
The report covered UGX 311Bn out of the UGX 4.6 trillion that had been spent between March 2020 and March 2021.
They used this platform to also call on the government to come up with strategies of opening up the economy.
“Covid 19 isnt yet to end but we should rather to learn living with it, commodities are in shops expiring hence Ugandans making losses yet the businessmen and women are continuing paying off their loans and the landlords will also request for rent even for the months when the shops were closed,” Walugembe said.
He further stated that the government put out money through the Uganda Development Bank and Microfinance Support center to help out Ugandans in the business sector but due to the little civic education many Ugandans are not aware of such funds.
“We have patterned with Open Forum Initiative, a law firm with the aim of putting government on task to fasten the process and we are now looking at putting our grievances to the Commissioner General,” he said
He said that a tax relief is one form of Stimulus because the business keeps the money instead of giving it to government.
“We shall do whatever it takes even if it requires going to Court we shall do so,” he added.
