Committee reassured Irish funds to Uganda are not going missing

THERE WAS no evidence of any money being siphoned off for corrupt purposes from Irish funds provided in Official Development Assistance (ODA) to Uganda, a parliamentary sub-committee was told at Leinster House yesterday.

The Irish Ambassador to Uganda, Kevin Kelly, told the Sub-committee on Overseas Development he was “not aware of any losses to our programme” arising from corrupt practices.

Accounting systems had been put in place which sought “at all times” to ensure that no money went astray. There was “a rigorous system of checks and balances”.

Irish development aid to Uganda in the period 2007-2009 amounted to €150 million, including “some €25 million” to be spent through Irish non-governmental organisations, he said.

Mr Kelly was responding to questions from sub-committee members, including Fine Gael foreign affairs spokesman Billy Timmins, who said the “impression is created that every penny that goes into Uganda goes into the president’s pocket” [ie Uganda’s president Yoweri Museveni].

Chairman John Deasy TD (Fine Gael) said he and other sub-committee members were impressed when they visited an Irish-funded school-building project in Uganda and saw that the “shovels of concrete were being counted by a clerk of works that we employed”.

Also welcoming the Ambassador’s assurances, Labour Senator Dominic Hannigan said: “I’m glad to hear your comments on corruption.” He expressed concern about reports that gay rights marches in Uganda had been broken up

Mr Kelly said he was “very aware” of issues about gay rights in Uganda, noting that this was a matter which “seems to excite a huge amount of energy and emotion and excitement on the government side” in Kampala, where attempts by foreign governments to raise it proved “very difficult”.

Concern Worldwide representative Louise Supple said, despite being ranked 156 out of 177 countries in the Human Development Index, Uganda had experienced “over 20 years of relative stability and uninterrupted economic growth”.

The security situation in the north of Uganda had improved greatly with the retreat of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), although a recent UN report said the LRA had killed some 1,200 people in the DRC “in the most heinous way”.

She said due to cuts in Ireland’s overseas aid budget arising from the current financial crisis, Concern had been obliged to suspend a programme promoting HIV/Aids awareness in the Pader district of Uganda.