Salaries paid to ghost workers

2007-10-23 22:49

Kampala - A Ugandan government drive to stamp out payment of bogus salaries to non-existent employees has saved the country $1m per month, a report by the Auditor-General says.

The annual report was compiled following accusations by legislators that salaries for ghost employees were actually being pocketed by corrupt officials.

The auditor said that about $1m had been shelled out each month to government ministries, hospitals, schools and universities to pay salaries of staff not working at them.

"The 26 473 invalid records comprised information about delayed transfers, retired, absconded, died, resigned, left," the 486-page report said, adding that the missing money had not been accounted for.

President Yoweri Museveni has talked tough on corruption in Uganda, which receives nearly half its funding from foreign donors. But he has been criticised for what diplomats say are failures to punish wrongdoing by his closest allies and family.

In May, former health minister and close Museveni ally Jim Muhwezi was charged with stealing nearly $2m of donor cash earmarked for children's vaccines.

In the early 2000s, some top Ugandan army officers were implicated in a ghost soldiers scandal in which salaries were drawn for dead or retired soldiers then allegedly stolen.

- Reuters