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Audit Finds UN Refugee Agency Critically Mismanaged Donor Funds in Uganda
[All Africa] The UN's refugee agency wasted tens of millions of dollars in Uganda in 2017, overpaying for goods and services, awarding major contracts improperly, and failing to avoid fraud, corruption, and waste, according to a damning internal probe.The audit, by the UN's Office of Internal Oversight Services, found multiple areas of mismanagement that were UNHCR's responsibility, such as a $7.9 million contract for road repairs awarded to a contractor with no experience in road construction, and questionable payments to trucking and bus companies worth $7.7 million. It noted "pervasive non-compliance" with regulations on "vast sums" spent on water trucking and that UNHCR paid at least $10 million more VAT than it needed to. Tens of millions of transport-related invoices are still being disputed with contractors. The audit also found stockpiled goods, more lying idle than had been distributed in the previous 12 months, including 288,000 blankets and 50,000 wheelbarrows. In addition, 15,000 solar lamps worth $279,860 were found to have gone missing, and no proper investigation was done. Uganda, a low-income country in East Africa of about 42 million people, hosts over a million refugees, more than anywhere bar ...Qatar's colony in Asia Minor.... and Pakistain. From 2013, worsening conflict in South Sudan led to a mass exodus into northern Uganda; the pace accelerated from mid-2016 onwards. Posted by: Fred 2018-11-30 |
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