Local Gov’t Leaders decry suffocation by central government

Local Gov’t Leaders decry suffocation by central government

By Our Reporter
Mbarara – Local government leaders have accused the central government over selfishness in the system on how revenue collected from districts are shared.
Jotham Mwesigwa, the Rwampara district Speaker who doubles as the representative of Speakers of western Uganda at the Uganda Local Governments Association (ULGA), revealed that local governments have a lot of challenges caused by suffocation from central government.
He claims that decentralization is being killed as the central government brings back recentralization when all the decisions  are being made at the center something he says slows down service delivery in local governments.
He said that the revenue collected from the lower councils are first sent to the central government, an takes a lot of time to be remitted to the local government. Mwesigwa added that the funds are remitted towards to end of each financial year which makes service delivery hard.
“You cannot send Ugx30m to a district like Rwampara to work on roads and expect people to have better roads. And also the projects that are being done in the local governments are given a very small portion. Another challenge is that there is a problem of leadership, the center is too selfish to the extent that the leadership at the district is poorly facilitated.
You cannot have funds to monitor activities that are taking place in the district, imagine I come from area where am a district councilor but am getting only Ugx175,000 which is very little for someone to move around the constituency or sub-county to monitor government projects,” Mwesigwa said.
He requested government to improve remuneration of councilors, LC3 chairpersons who receive around Ugx290,000 and have to traverse the whole sub-county to monitor government programs, and LC1 chairpersons who get Ugx10,000 per month.
Districts collect revenue through lower councils like sub-counties and send it to the central government,  in return only 35% goes to the district, and other percentages  goes to sub-counties. However there are some districts like Rwampara that do not have enough sources of revenue.
 Mwesigwa revealed that a district like Rwampara collects about Ugx300m and when divided among the 8 sub-counties, the remaining money is too little.
He suggested that the money collected from local governments remain the in their respective local governments so that it serves its rightful purpose.
“As speakers representatives we have our other association called UDCOSA, we have tried to raise our voices over the matter but our bosses including the President have kept a deaf ear. We have made attempts to meet the him to explain the challenges but all in vain,” he noted.
Mwesigwa also decried the high unemployment rate among the youth in Uganda currently at 12%, saying that many have gone to school and graduated but end up with nothing to do.
He appealed to the government to create many job opportunities so that the jobless youth can be empowered through gainful employment.
According to reliable sources on the ground, Mwesigwa harbours plans of contesting for youth MP seat for western region come 2026 general elections, and is said to be doing ground mobilization works already.

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