200 Kibuku District Councilors Demanding Shs195 Million In Unpaid Allowances

BY PATRICK JARAMOGI

KIBUKU, Uganda |SHIFTMEDIA| Atleast 233 councilors from Kibuku district are crying foul over the district’s failure to pay their sitting allowances for two consecutive years (2018/19- 2019/20) this website can exclusively report.

According to a cross-section of councilors from the districts 16 Sub Counties, each councilor was entitled to a seating monthly allowance of Ugx35,000 ($9).

In a snapshot, councilors are each demanding shs840,000 for the two Financial years 2018/19 2019-10.

This means out of the 233 councilors, the district was supposed to pay shs195.72 million.

But when we did some calculations, we realized that out of the 233 councilors, just about 155 are the old councilors who are demanding arrears. Similarly, the district owes these 155 councilors shs130.2 million for the two financial years.

Where is Kibuku?

Kibuku district is located in eastern Uganda some 35km from Mbale district. It is bordered by Namutumba in the west, Butalejja in the south, Budaka in the East, and Pallisa in the north.

It has two Legislators in Parliament Hon. Kinobera Herbert representing Kibuku and Hon. Gonahasa Francis Barnabas from Kabweri constituency.

The district has three Town Councils, 40 parishes, and over 200 villages.  With a population of 248, 000 as per the National Population & Housing Census projection of 2020, the majority of the inhabitants are agriculturalists.

 The underlying issues

Local Governments are responsible for the provision of services that more directly impact the livelihood of citizens. Such services—according to the Second Schedule of the Local Government Act, 1997 (as amended)—include the provision of education services, medical and health services, community development services, water and sanitation, feeder roads, and production and marketing services. Policies on the provision of these services are translated into action through the respective Local Government budgets. Local Governments are thus accountable to their citizens as far as planning and execution of the budgets are concerned.

Accountability means that the budgets developed by Local Governments should reflect the priorities and needs of the people. It also means that there should be value for money in budget execution.

Much as the citizens have a responsibility to hold their Local Governments accountable, their responsibility is partly delegated to councilors who pass the Local Government budgets and also hold technocrats accountable through council committees.

And it is through such services that the councilors are demanding for payments. When district councilors start complaining of unpaid wage arrears, then issues of accountability start to deteriorate.

Some of the councilors from Buseta, Bulangira, Tirinyi, Kibuku, Kagumu, Kasasira, Kirika, Kabweri and Kadama who spoke to us said they were dismayed on Thursday, May 212020 when they realized that deductions were made from the outstanding Ugx420,000 that was due to only Ugx279,000 for the FY 2018/19. This means each councilor was paid shs23,250 per month instead of the shs35,000.

“We raised our concern about the deductions from UGX 420.000 to UGX 279.000 for the two consecutive FYs;2018/19 & 2019/20 leaving a balance of Ugx 141,000 per FY. In response, the district informed us that the Ministry of Finance only catered for the payment of old councilors excluding the newly elected and that as a district, they sat and resolved to also pay the new councilors using the Ex-gratia for the old councilors,” said one irked councilor.

He added: “We’re ideally not satisfied with their explanations because really how can a poor councilor pay a fellow councilor?”

The enraged councilors have tasked the Ministry of Local Government and that of Finance and Economic Planning to intervene immediately before the worse gets to the worse.

Through their association, the Kibuku District councilors’ Association, the Sub-county councilors have petitioned Local Government Minister Hon. Raphael Magyezi to intervene.

When contacted, Magyezi declined to comment. similarly, the secretary to Treasury and Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, Keith Muhakanizi, declined to pick our repeated calls.

According to the Chief Administrative Officer Kibuku, Richard Mugolo, the Honoraria funds for the old councilors were chopped off to pay the newly elected councilors whose budget has not been yet considered by the Ministry of finance.  But Richard Mugolo is not new to controversy, last year he was among the 110 incompetent CAOs named by Keith Muhakanizi for failing to account for the public funds.

But the contention from the aggrieved councilors is that unlike their newly elected councilors, they served for two consecutive years without pay, so why can’t the new members serve as they wait for budget approval.

What was allocated by Finance?

According to the Ministry of Finance, Budget Monitoring and Accounting Unit (BMAU) that monitors effective implementation of government programmes and projects, during the Financial Year 2018/19, the district had an approved annual budget of shillings 21,432,761,000 out of which shillings 5,396,761,000 representing 25% was received by the end of September (first quarter). Of the total revenues received shillings 56,004,000 representing 35% was locally raised revenues; 1,043,432,000 representing 28% was Discretionary government transfers; shillings 3,949,714,000 representing 26.8% was conditional government transfers while shillings 347,610,000 representing 12% was from other government transfers.

For the year 2019/20 Kibuku district had an anticipated revenue forecast of shillings 20,322,923 showing a reduction of shillings 1,109,838,000 from the budget for the financial year 2018/19. The reduction was due to budget cuts across a number of central government sources like NUSAF III, YLP, URF, Gratuity for local governments, General Public service pension arrears, nd salary arrears.

According to officials from BMAU, out of the total anticipated revenues shillings, 161,627,000 representing 0.79% of the l budget was to come from locally raised revenue.

Discretionary government transfers were 98.9%, while Donor funding was expected to contribute only 0.002% and this was due to withdrawal of funding from UNFPA.

Analysis of the anticipated revenues shows that local revenue contributes insignificantly to the total anticipated annual district budget, and this is due to a low local revenue base.

The District chairperson, Kadiama Charles Busolo, said Kibuku is faced with a challenge of inadequate resources.

Kadiam has always reiterated the need for Local Government to explore the existing and new sources of Local Revenue in order to ensure sustainability.

“We request the Central Government to continue making available more resources to Kibuku District such that the funding gaps are filled in order to improve service delivery with the ultimate aim of reducing disparities and improving on the incomes and quality of life of our people,” he said.

He noted that out of the total approved annual budget of shillings 21,432,000, shillings 5,356,861,000 were received during the first quarter. 100% released funds were disbursed to the different departments and they were spent as follows: 2,744,656,000 representing 51,7% of the release was spent on the payment of wages; 1,496,730 representing 28% was spent on non-wage recurrent while shillings 1,115,475,000 representing 20.8% was spent on domestic development investments.

For the FY 2019/20, total of shillings of 10,978,626,000 representing 54% of the total revenue was to be spent on payment of staff salaries, while Shillings 5,978,361,000 representing 29% of the total revenues was to be spent on non-wage recurrent activities reflecting an increment of 30,110,000 from the budget for 2018/19.

For the financial year 2019/20, the Kibuku district local governments have an anticipated revenue forecast of shillings 161,627,000 from locally raised sources which are slightly higher than the budget for running year 2018/19. Local Services tax is expected to make a significant contribution to the overall locally raised revenue with a percentage of 44.4%.