By Weswa Ronnie
NAMISINDWA
The Namisindwa Chief Administrative Officer has been reported to the State House Anti-Corruption Unit for allegedly diverting start-up funds for the newly created lower local government administrative units.
In a letter dated 26th July 2022 and seen by this website, the 12 LCIII chairpersons of 8 sub counties and 4 town councils are accusing the CAO of releasing less money to the Units than what was appropriated by Parliament.
The LCIII Chairpersons allege that the CAO released only Shs8.8M instead of 31M to sub counties and Shs21, 019,526 instead of 50m to town councils.
The new sub counties are Buwatuwa, Bungati, Bumumali, Nabitsikhi, Mukhuyu, Bumityero, Namitsa, and Buwambwa. While the Town Councils are Bukhaweka, Luwa, Bumbo and Bubutu.
According to the petition, Parliament appropriated start-up funds for the above units i.e. 50m for the town councils and 31m for the sub counties. The Ministry of finance planning and economic development subsequently released the funds as appropriated by the parliament to district accounts.
To their dissatisfaction however, the CAO has not released all this money to the new units.
“Whereas the ministry of finance had released all the money as appropriated by parliament, CAO NAMISINDWA instead of releasing the said money to lower local governments as appropriated by parliament, released 8.8M instead of 31M to sub counties and 21,019,526 instead of 50m to town council. As leaders this became a big concern since our colleagues and neighbors in Manafwa district had received all the money.” The petition reads in part.
The LCIII Chairpersons now want the State House Anti-Corruption Unit to cause the CAO to release the balance of the start-up funds so they can fund council activities.
The start-up funds are meant to pay salaries for LCIII chairpersons and the technical staffs, pay honoraria to councilors and fund other council activities.
The LCIIIs suspect the other money to have been swindled by district bigwigs whom they want the State House Anti-Corruption Unit to come and investigate.
They add that they have lots of work at the sub-county and town councils like road maintenance, paying casual workers among others but no money.
Jackson Wakwaika the Namisindwa district LCV chairperson when contacted confirmed that government released 31 million shillings for each new Sub County and 50million for Town Councils as start-up funds.
He explained that each newly created town councils got 21 million shillings; part of it for clearing office rent arrears, 6 million shillings for LCIII salary arrears, and 4 million for councilors allowance arrears.
The LCV chairperson further explained that the money released to the newly created sub-counties was 6 million for LCIII salary arrears, and 4 million for councilors’ allowance arrears.
Wakwaika also says that the balance is still at the district account waiting to pay civil servants like sub-county chiefs, town clerks, and sub accountants among others whom the district is planning to recruit for those newly created units.
Getting a comment from Namisidwa Chief Administrative Officer Franco Olabaro was futile by press time because he did not pick our repeated calls.
