The government will begin profiling individuals who have lost court cases against the state to enforce the collection of awarded funds and boost non-tax revenue, the Secretary to the Treasury, Ramathan Ggoobi, has announced.
Ggoobi made the commitment while appearing before Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on November 12, 2026, during a session convened to review the December 2025 Auditor General’s report. He urged the Committee to help him hold Accounting Officers accountable for expediting the recovery of money owed to the state.
“We are going to profile all of those [individuals] because they could be scattered all over the place, and we will enforce collection,” Ggoobi told the Committee. “Your support will help me hold those officers accountable. We are doing our best.”
The directive followed pointed questioning from PAC Chairperson Patrick Nsamba (Kassanda North), who demanded to know why the Ministry of Finance has failed to recover over UGX 50 billion from Christopher Obey. The former Principal Accountant at the Ministry of Public Service was convicted of siphoning over UGX 88.2 billion in pension and National Social Security Fund (NSSF) money, alongside a separate UGX 15.4 billion pension scam involving forged judicial documents—despite his properties recently being listed for auction.
Nsamba criticized the state’s lopsided approach to litigation payouts and recoveries.
“You spend substantial sums paying out court awards when the government loses cases, yet you make no effort to collect funds when the government wins,” Nsamba noted. “We want recoveries reported just like payouts, as they represent vital government revenue.”
The push for recovery comes against a backdrop of ballooning state liabilities. According to the Auditor General’s report, audited consolidated domestic arrears for Central and Local Governments stood at UGX 5.748 trillion as of June 2024. Of this total, accumulated court awards and compensations accounted for UGX 1.1738 trillion (UGX 1.172 trillion by Central Government and UGX 1.57 billion by Local Governments).
During the same sitting, legislators queried the wide price disparities for identical goods and services across different government agencies, asking why Uganda lacks standardized public procurement pricing.
In response, Julian Amongin, Assistant Commissioner for Procurement in the Accountant General’s Office, revealed that the government is introducing collaborative procurement arrangements. Under this model, specialized lead agencies will procure goods and services in bulk on behalf of other public entities to leverage economies of scale.
However, Nsamba cautioned that centralizing procurement could breed bureaucratic bottlenecks, drawing parallels to the ring-fencing of public construction works for the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) Engineering Brigade, which has faced criticism for project delays. Amongin assured the Committee that the Ministry is finalizing a comprehensive framework to address operational dynamics and prevent red tape across all procurement categories.
The Committee also scrutinized the Ministry of Finance’s failure to fill key leadership roles substantively. MPs expressed concern after learning that Acting Accountant General Godfrey Ssemugooma has served in two consecutive acting capacities over an 11-year period.
Tororo South MP Fredrick Angura noted that this violates Uganda Public Service Standing Orders, which restrict acting appointments to a maximum of six months. Ssemugooma confirmed the timeline, clarifying that while his cumulative acting tenure spans 11 years across two roles, he has only held his current post for a few months.
Ggoobi attributed the prolonged delays in confirming senior staff to the ongoing indictment of officials within the Treasury Operations Department—a fallout from the scandal in which over UGX 60 billion meant for external debt servicing was erroneously wired to accounts in Japan. Despite the setback, Ggoobi pledged to formalize the appointments of all eligible officers currently serving in acting capacities.
