KAMPALA: Professor Mahmood Mamdani, the Director of the Makerere Institute for Social Research-MISR, is on the spot over accountability issues barely a fortnight to the end of his tenure. According to correspondence seen by URN, Prof. Mamdani is faulted for a failure to provide accountability for the years 2020 and 2021.
However, Prof. Mamdani counters that the management failed to reign in on the Assistant Accountant of MISR, Edgar Ahereza, for alleged refusal to return vouchers to the MISR Accounts office and provide the missing accountability reports. In a February 12, 2022, communication to the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Mamdani reports an alleged failure by the University Management to respond urgently to his report involving the MISR Assistant Accountant, Muhereza.
Prof. Mamdani explains that when he wrote to the management, the University Secretary, Yusuf Kiranda, wrote back promising to handle the matter urgently as discussed, but soon after, asked him to be patient and wait until Monday, February 14, before taking action.
According to Prof. Mamdani, he doesn’t know what caused the sudden change, but he needs the issue solved quickly so that he can write his handover report when his term ends on February 28, 2022.
Before then (on February 28th), I intend to produce a comprehensive handover report, a confidential report that I will distribute to all key stakeholders, internal and external. Should this matter remain unresolved by then, I shall be duty-bound to inform any donor whose funding may be compromised by alleged fraud,” wrote Professor Mamdani.
On February 14, 2022, Prof. Mamdani penned a three-page response to Prof. Mamdani’s letter, in which he noted that Prof. Mamdani brought to his attention the issue involving Ahereza, and he committed to pursuing the case to ensure that Ahereza delivers the vouchers asked for by the Professor. The interaction between the two happened on February 3, 2022, when Prof. Mamdani was heading for a meeting with the Vice-Chancellor.
However, Kiranda says that Prof. Mamdani did not take the matter to him (formally) until February 7, 2022, when he wrote seeking that the issue be resolved on the same day, a move he found fishy. The vouchers and cashbooks Prof. Mamdani asked for date back to 2021, which Kiranda wondered if MISR was doing the necessary monthly reconciliations to make sure the money was being paid out correctly.
It appears to me that your bringing this matter to my attention and demanding that I resolve it on short notice was only to enable you to find a way of shifting blame for your inefficiency. I find this approach to public management unacceptable, “penned Kiranda.
In the same letter, Kiranda notes the poor financial management and accountability practices at MISR. He says that while on a trip to the US, Pro. Mamdani asked the Principal of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences-CHUSS to sign for him, changing the way the university manages money without telling the University Secretary, who is the accounting officer of the university, about the change.
The correspondences also show that MISR, under Prof. Mamdani’s leadership, has also been slow in providing financial records to auditors. In 2019, Kiranda had to meet Prof. Mamdani and the MISR finance team and the auditors before MISR could submit financial documents for the 2018 audit.
It also happened that Kit and Co., a firm hired by the Attorney General to audit MISR’s 2020 accounts, hasn’t finished its work for almost a year because MISR management didn’t give it enough money.
For clarity, I hold you responsible for all financial and any other records at MISR according to the mandate and responsibilities for the Director of the Institute. I think that your letter to the Vice-Chancellor, which implies that the current challenge to the University Management is a failure, is an attempt by you to blame someone else for your own failure, “he said.
On February 14, 2022, management met and decided that the Auditor General should audit MISR. They asked Prof. Mamdani to give them financial and other records for 2020 and 2021 so that the audit could be done, as well.
Consequently, Prof. Mamdani wrote to Kiranda suggesting a specific auditor to conduct the process, but Kiranda informed him that the Auditor General remains with the discretion to select an auditor of his choice. Kiranda said that if an auditee picks the auditor, there could be a conflict of interest.
In case Ahereza doesn’t send in the vouchers, Kiranda has told the bursar what to do if he doesn’t. She has also told him what to do if he doesn’t.