Members of the Finance Committee of the Judiciary
Kampala. Early this week,government released a total of Shs 5.5 trillion shillings to various ministries,departments and agencies for the first quarter of the financial year. The funds are meant for planned expenditures for the months of July, August and September. The Judiciary is receiving Shs 134 billion and out of this, Shs 30bn is the wage bill.
The Secretary to Judiciary/ Permanent Secretary who is also the accounting officer presented Judiciary's last financial year performance and also highlighted on the planned activities this quarter.
He shared this during the institution's finance committee meeting that discusses and confirms activity work plans and financial allocations for the approved activities.
Core to the update about the past financial year was that several Grade One Magistrates courts were operationalised. "In the spirit of extending court services closer to the people and in line with the professionalization of the Bench policy, some newly gazetted Magistrates G.1 Courts that were formerly GII Courts have been operationalized," Mr. Kagole's summary notes read in part.
Some of the operationalised courts in the past financial year were; Nagongera, Kigandalo, Kachera,Kyarusozi, Luzira, Butiiti, Bufunjo, Kasali, Kityerera and Masaka Municipality.
He also reported that due to the financial discipline, the outstanding bill reduced from Shs 8.2bn at the beginning of quarter three in the financial year 2016/17 to slightly over Shs 3bn at the end of the last financial year, a reduction Mr. Kagole says is recommendable.
Also in the ending financial year, the Secretary to Judiciary reported that his office returned close to a billion shillings (Shs 916, 387,549), which funds were unused to the Consolidated Fund.
Some of the returned funds were meant to cater for judges/justices who were meant to replace those who had retired, funds encumbered without proper documentation, cleanup of the contract staff payroll, bouncing EFTs, incomplete records among other reasons.
For the new financial year,that begun on July 1, Mr. Kagole revealed that the operational funds will be released for all the three months in the first quarter.
On the issue of accessing the said funds, Mr. Kagole stated, "Operational funds will be released for all the three months in the first month of the quarter (July, 2017) on requisition(by the Registrar Magistrates Affairs for all Magistrates courts; Registrar High Court for High Court Divisions and circuits; Registrar Court of Appeal and Registrar Supreme Court for their respective courts) and on presentation of the acknowledgment letter of the receipt of the accountability of the operation fund release for the fourth quarter where applicable."
The Secretary to Judiciary emphasized that there will be no cash transactions for activities as the institution will be implementing the new e-cash policy.
Posted 14th, July 2017
