Massive fraud and corruption noted in services for more than one million refugees
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 Turkey and Pakistan. From 2013, worsening conflict in South Sudan led to a mass exodus into northern Uganda; the pace accelerated from mid-2016 onwards.
By 2017 Kampala’s goodwill was seen as critical to providing a safe harbour for hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese refugees, and an aid official familiar with the situation, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issues, said UNHCR seemed “desperately cautious not to upset the Uganda government.”
The aid official explained that the international community had been “singing Uganda’s praises” as a “model country” due to its liberal and progressive refugee-hosting policies at a time of rising anti-refugee sentiment.
Uganda “was branded globally as the example to follow”, said Julien Schopp, director of humanitarian practice at US NGO consortium InterAction. “Does that influence the oversight and dissuade UNHCR from digging a little deeper and uncovering corruption and mismanagement. Who has leverage on who?”
Layers of blame
UNHCR’s expenditure in Uganda jumped from $125 million in 2016 to $205 million in 2017, Four donors (Britain, the EU, Germany, and the United States) contributed about 80 percent of the 2017 funding, according to the UN’s Financial Tracking Service.
Major problems first emerged in February 2018. The UN alleged that Ugandan officials were diverting aid by colluding to pocket supplies issued to fake refugee identities. A threat of a freeze on donor funds led the Ugandan government to replace its head of refugee affairs and agree to a complete recount of its refugee population, managed by UNHCR.
UNHCR announced in February that its Inspector General’s Office, which can refer staff for disciplinary or other measures, had opened an investigation into “fuel embezzlement, one allegation of sexual exploitation and abuse, irregular tendering of water trucking, and fraud in procurement and food distribution.”
The internal watchdog also reported in July that UNHCR was assisting Ugandan investigationsinto “corruption by government officials relating to, among others, irregularities in land allocation to refugees, bridge construction, theft of food and non-food items and fuel mismanagement.”
But the UN’s internal audit, released last week to the public but not previously reported, provides a wealth of new detail on UNHCR’s role in mismanagement – and likely fraud – affecting refugee registration and services in 2017. It also offers new details on UNHCR’s relations with the Ugandan government.
Refugees fall under the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), Ruhakana Rugunda. Julius Mucunguzi, a spokesperson for the OPM, told IRIN that investigations were still ongoing, including into four employees suspended by the government. Mucunguzi declined to comment on the audit, saying, “UNHCR has got its own processes”.
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