Auditor General John Muwanga hands over his 2022/2023 annual report on how taxpayers’ money was spent to Speaker Anita Among at Parliament on January 9, 2024. Photo/David Lubowa
President Museveni has tapped Mr Edward Akol, a certified public accountant, as the next Auditor General (AG), replacing long-serving John F S Muwanga, this publication can reveal.
Although Senior Presidential Press Secretary Sandor Walusimbi said he was “unaware” of the appointment, State House sources said Mr Akol’s name has been sent to Parliament for vetting.
The Head of State has also nominated Justice Lillian Tumusiime and Anthony Wabwire for consideration as substantive judges of the Industrial Court based in Ntinda, a Kampala outskirt.
Parliament’s Appointments Committee is scheduled to meet on Thursday, to vet the trio, including the replacement for Mr Muwanga, who has cumulatively served as AG for 22 years.
The AG, who has been reported indisposed over the past few weeks, yesterday said he had not been to the office when this newspaper reached him for his counsel to the potential successor.
“I can’t be of value to you. If I [was] in office, then I [could] check my documents … but now I am with guests,” he said, adding, “Sorry, please, forgive me. I would have wanted to check up and whatnot and let you know, but I can’t leave my guests.”
The storied profile of Mr Muwanga, a fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, has included being a member and eventual chair of the United Nations Independent Audit Advisory Committee and working as a member of the World Bank Multilateral Audit Advisory Group.
His two-decade service as AG – in a country where 50 percent of the population is aged 17 or under – reified his image as Uganda’s gold standard of audit.
These, according to insiders, gave Mr Muwanga an outsized influence in and outside government, making his professional shoes a larger one for a successor to fit.
The nominated replacement, Mr Akol, is presently an Assistant Auditor General (Audit) and has worked with OAG in various capacities for nearly three decades, having joined in August 1994.
He was unavailable yesterday to speak for this article.
Some OAG staff described the holder of a Master of Business Administration degree from Scotland, the United Kingdom, as a “young, brilliant and reserved man”.
“He is a real chief executive who is not nosy and a thinker at strategic level who is not into small, small things,” one official said on condition of anonymity in order to discuss an appointment pending confirmation.
When he assigns supervisees, said the staffer, “he gives you liberty to be creative … he is result-oriented … a classy boss”.
The OAG, according to information on its website, is the “supreme audit institution” in the country constitutionally tasked to conduct routine, forensic and value-for-money audits for public-funded bodies and produce “reliable and high-quality reports” to inform decisions of various stakeholders, among them, the Executive and Parliament.
“In so doing, we promote good governance, transparency and effective accountability in the management and use of public resources,” the entity notes in an introductory note online.
The AG is an office established under Article 163 of the Constitution and has wide-ranging powers, including pre-approving withdrawal of money from the Consolidated Fund.
The mandate of the office holder is to audit and report on the public accounts of Uganda. Institutions eligible for auditing by the AG are courts, the central and local governments, public universities, parastatals and any entity established by Parliament.
The country’s supreme law grants autonomy to the office, obligated to submit to Parliament an annual report of audited accounts for the preceding financial year, which the House discusses and acts upon within six months from submission.
Under the laws, Parliament must appoint an auditor to specially audit the accounts of the AG who must be a professional accountant with at least 15 years’ experience and of high probity. (Source: Office of the Auditor General website)
Who is Edward Akol?
Mr Edward Akol has been tapped as the next Auditor General.
Mr Edward Akol began working with the Office of the Auditor General in August 1994, rising to his current post of Assistant Auditor General (in charge of Audit), having served as senior auditor and senior principal auditor.
A holder of Master of Business Administration from the graduate Edinburgh Business School of Heriot-Watt University in Scotland, the United Kingdom, Mr Akol is a Kenya-trained Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and alumnus of Makerere University where he graduated in 1993 with a Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting option).
He has immense experience in auditing donor-funded government projects and has specialised trainings in foreign aid accounting and auditing (UMI, 2002), instructional techniques (AFROSAI, 2002), Information Technology (IT) auditing (AFROSAI, 2001), Africa Development Bank Project Implementation (African Development Institution, 1999) and forensic investigations and money launders undertaken in Zambia 2006.
