Edward Akol, Uganda’s Auditor GeneralThe Speaker of Parliament, Jacob Oboth has challenged the Auditor General, Edward Akol over his failure to detect the alleged corruption and financial irregularities in the 11th Parliament while scrutinising the utilisation of public funds.This was during the Courtesy call the Office of the Auditor General had paid to the Speaker of Parliament, on 5th August 2026, prompting the Auditor General to ask the Speaker to have this discussion held in a closed-door meeting outside the prying eyes of the media.“It could have escaped your eye, there is a room which was owned by somebody else, but you had passed there also. Maybe, it was not part of the sample, that was convenient,” noted Oboth.However, Akol replied, “We would like to welcome some comments in areas specifically where we can improve, I know you mentioned something to do with what happened here some time back. But I think in a closed-door meeting, we shall have more engagement on that matter since it’s a very sensitive matter. But also related to that, is the fact that there are reports which are very sensitive in nature, classified and all that, at some point, I think I would also like to have a closed meeting with you just to give you context.”The Speaker also pledged to strengthen, support and promote accountability in Parliament in the coming five years, especially with much focus going towards the accountability committees and ensure they just don’t indulge in politics, but do real accountability.“And from my place, it starts with us, and I hope it will also start with you. So, the big question has been, who audits the auditor general? We hold everyone accountable. Who holds us accountable? Should we leave it only to the members of public, to voters, or we need to find some accountability measures that we can account for the time, we can account for the resources that we are given,” said Oboth.The Speaker of Parliament added, “But we need to do it smartly and gain public confidence, that they will know that we are still people who can serve Government, but serve the interests of Ugandans and we can’t all have enough money. But people who are working auditor generals are well, fairly paid as compared to other people. So, we don’t want to hear, I was tempted to not make this voucher a sample. We want you to help us, walk with our heads up, with our shoulders squared up. When we say we are not afraid of anything, whether in darkness or in light.The Auditor General highlighted the challenges the Office of the Auditor General is facing including the need to hire additional 600 staff to cover the gap created by the expended auditing scope, especially with the emergency of Parish Development Model, that created need to have auditing extended lower to parishes.He noted, “We are about 600, and I am aware that we still need another 600 to be able to be full capacity, but even with this 600 staff, we have been able to do 4,500 audits, up from 180 audits that we used to do in 2008. You realise with the most important programme that we have now, the PDM, there are over 10,000 Parishes that we need to audit and they are scattered across the country. We need some logistical support in terms of vehicles to assist us moving these areas. Currently, 70% of our fleet is supposed to have been written off in accordance to the government standards.”Speaker Oboth however wondered why the request for vehicles hasn’t been addressed remarking, “Did you bring and they refused? You know how much in the resource envelope; you plan and we do what we can do. We shall give you all the support we can, but we can’t promise that we shall give you 10,000 vehicles. No. As you speak through your justification of your mandate, we need to, everyone in Uganda who works for government needs to be facilitated to do their work.”The post Speaker Oboth Challenges Auditor General Akol Over Failure to Detect Mega Corruption in 11th Parliament appeared first on Business Focus.