The Legal Affairs Committee of Parliament has summoned some government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) for failing to comply with determinations and directives of the Office of the Ombudsman.
The move, according to a letter from Parliament, is in response to the submission the Office of the Ombudsman made to the august House, enlisting all the MDAs that have not complied with determinations made by the Ombudsman.
In the letter, dated June 24 2024, Ombudsman Grace Malera indicates that her office submitted the list of non-compliant MDAs for Parliament’s further action in line with Section 9(1) and (4) of the Ombudsman Act (as amended in 2024).
“Reference is made to your letter…in which you submitted a list of Ombudsman’s determinations which were not complied to by MDAs, I wish to inform you that the committee intends to summon the various MDAs on non-compliance to the determinations,” Parliament’s letter to the Ombudsman reads.
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Ministries that the Ombudsman reported to Parliament for non-compliance are: Education with 25 non-complied-with determinations, ministries of Health and Natural Resources with 18 each, while ministries of Transport and Public Works and Agriculture will be answering to over 12 determinations.
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According to the letter, the committee would engage the Ministry of Natural Resources and Climate Change and the Ministry of Transport and Public Works on July 22 2024 while ministries of Agriculture, Health and Education officials would appear before the committee on July 23.
Confirming the development, Malera said they would also be engaging the Legal Affairs Committee of Parliament on the office’s 2023 annual report, ahead of the committee’s engagement with the said MDAs.
“The Office of the Ombudsman is mandated by law to submit to Parliament an annual report of its activities. The annual report which we submitted in June 2024 details the achievements, milestones and challenges the office encountered and projections for preceding years, as well as [providing] an account on human and financial resources management, among other things.
“The process of holding accountable non-complying MDAs by Parliament was recommenced in 2022 and, since then, we have registered a significant increase in the compliance rate by MDAs with the Ombudsman’s determinations. We look forward to the upcoming series of meetings with the listed MDAs to ensure that we sustain the increased trends in the compliance rate of our determinations,” she said.
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The Ombudsman Amendment Bill, which Parliament passed into law in November 2023, and which the President assented to in February 2024, has a provision for a strengthened and effective enforcement mechanism for the Ombudsman’s determinations.
