Mr. Michael Gaffey:

Our money for the peace, recovery and development plan, PRDP, was going to two districts in Karamoja. The embassy put the money into the Bank of Uganda. It goes in at that end but we were also monitoring at the other end. Other donors were not necessarily doing so. We have an office in Karamoja with an employee of ours working there all the time. There were regular visits from the embassy. It is a remote and difficult environment. When I went there in April, we looked at the effect of the programme on the ground and examined schools and infrastructure. We went to the local offices where we wanted to see additionality. The Government is putting money into Karamoja but this programme adds additional money. We wanted to see, in the books of the local authorities, that the additional money was arriving, that it was being used properly and that it was having an effect. One can see the effect on the ground. If that was the case, how did we not see that €4 million had not arrived in Karamoja? The point made by Mr. Rogers is correct. Our first contribution of €3.2 million was put into the PRDP in October 2010. We put in the sum of €4 million in July 2011. There is a timeframe for public expenditure and procurement in any country, as there is in Uganda. We were seeing progress on the ground but in April 2012 we did not see the full effect. We would not expect to see the full effect of the €4 million, which would come later.

The positive aspect of this very difficult situation is that the discrepancy was found by the Auditor General. I am convinced that it would have become evident through slower activity and delivery on the ground in karamoja and we would have been able to raise our concerns and point it out.