Parliament’s Physical Infrastructure Committee ordered the detention of two senior audit officials after they admitted that the controversial Intelligent Transport Monitoring System had gone unaudited for about four years.
Parliament’s Committee on Physical Infrastructure has ordered the detention of two senior officials from the Office of the Auditor General after they failed to explain why the controversial Intelligent Transport Monitoring System (ITMS) had not been audited since its inception.
The order followed a heated inquiry into the multibillion-shilling digital number plate project, during which the officials acknowledged that no financial or technical audit had been conducted, despite the project having been under implementation since 2021.
Committee chairperson Mwine Mpaka accused the Office of the Auditor General of negligence and failure to fulfil its statutory responsibilities, citing provisions of the Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) Act that he said require quarterly audits from the project's inception.
The officials, including the Director for Central Government Audit and Anthony Kimuli, the Director for Value for Money Audit, presented a written submission from Auditor General Edward Akol explaining the delays.
According to Akol’s statement, his office had planned to audit the project during the 2025 audit year and wrote to the Ministry of Works and Transport on June 19, 2025, seeking preliminary information.
The ministry’s permanent secretary responded on July 10, 2025, saying digital vehicle registration was part of the ITMS project, which was being implemented and overseen by a multisectoral project management team under the Office of the President.
The submission further indicated that subsequent engagements with the Office of the President revealed that the project had been classified as security-related and was fully financed by Russian company Joint Stock Company Global Security Limited.
The explanation did not satisfy committee members, who questioned why the audit had not been conducted earlier and how the government could establish the project's financial accountability while Ugandans were paying more than Shs750,000 for digital number plates.
Mpaka argued that claims of private financing did not remove the need for scrutiny, particularly as the project involved payments by motorists and a system expected to generate revenue through fines.
“When you say the project has been fully financed, yet Ugandans are paying, they expect to recover this money from fines, it ceases to become a whole investment by a private company,” Mpaka told the officials.
He also questioned discrepancies between the information previously presented by the Ministry of Works and Transport and the auditors’ submission.
“The Ministry came here and informed us you have started auditing. Now you are here telling us you have not yet started. The law states the Office of the Auditor General must audit every quarter. We are now down the road about four years or more, no audit,” he said.
MP Attan Moses challenged the officials over their explanation that access to information had not been denied, pointing to the difficulties Parliament itself had encountered in obtaining documents relating to the project.
“You've been denied information to support audit work in the name of security, just like this committee has struggled to get contracts in the name of security,” Attan said, warning the officials against contradicting their written submission.
Mpaka subsequently directed officers from the Parliamentary Criminal Investigations Directorate to take the officials into custody for questioning.
“You have betrayed your nation. It is dereliction of duty, breach of duty, negligence, default, remissness, omission, whatever you want to call it,” he said.
He added that the officials would be required to record statements and remain at the police station until their superior appeared before the committee.
The chairperson also said summonses would be issued to senior officials responsible for the audit function, warning that failure to comply could result in further arrests.
After issuing the detention order, the committee asked media personnel to leave the room before proceeding with a closed-door meeting with senior police officers to review confidential information concerning alleged technical failures and security vulnerabilities in the ITMS infrastructure.
The inquiry comes amid wider parliamentary scrutiny of the digital number plate project, including questions about its financing, contractual arrangements, implementation and accountability.