Fued! Mbarara City Mayor Kakyebezi, Councilors lock horns over unremitted funds

Amos Tayebwa

Mbarara

There was drama at Mbarara City Council main Hall after a section of Councilors from Mbarara City North Division led by their Division Mayor Kyabwisho Gumisiriza stormed the offices of the City Mayor Robert Kakyebezi and the City  Town Clerk demanding their unremitted Local revenue and Property tax funds.

It was on Tuesday, June 4, 2024 during an Executive Committee meeting that was chaired by the City Mayor Kakyebezi before they were invaded by the angry division Councilors amidst the meeting. There was a bitter exchange of words between Mayor Kakyebezi and the Councilors.

Councilors’ invasion forced the Executive meeting to stop, however Mayor Kakyebezi directed the councilors to first get out of the Hall so that they can finish their meeting, this made the councilors to become resistant insisting that the Mayor and the Town Clerk must have to first receive their petition handle their concerns as they were indicated in the petition.

After a long argument between the Councillors and the City Mayor, they were allowed to hand over their petition to the Mayor and the Town Clerk Assey Abireebe. But the Councilors still refused to get out of the Hall and demanded explanations from the Mayor and the Town Clerk on reasons why the City Council failed to remit their money as Local Government policy  guides.

In the petition presented by the Mbarara City North Division Councilors, they accuse Mbarara City Council Leadership against unremitted Local Revenue and mismanagement of property tax.

The complainants want the office of the Attorney General to intervene and launch an investigation into  the issues of exhaustion of the budget line in the third quarter of the financial year. That the division cannot receive any more funds from the city on the purported claim that its budget line got exhausted as the budget performance stands at 48%, that Mbarara City Council told Mbarara City North Division Leadership that they cannot get any more fund release because as the City they have already spent 100%. According to the petition claims, the alarming reality is that the Division in the fourth quarter of the financial year has already collected 233.8M in April  and124.8M  in May totaling to 358.6M and the collections that would be done in the months of June won’t be remitted to the divisions due to the exhaustion of the budget line. According to the councilors, this crisis has demoralised both political and the division technical revenue collection teams hence poor budget performance .

Another issue presented in the petition is that Mbarara City has failed to pay arrears owed by the Divisions. “As per internal audit verification report of 16th March 2023 and later PAC of Parliament report had instructed Mbarara City Council to pay the Divisions per arrears of local government equalisation grant 30% of UGX 96.5 to which Mbarara City commited to pay but in vain, in our efforts to demand these arrears the Chief Finance Officer Mbarara City told the Division that the City cannot budget for arrears and therefore those funds should be treated as a bad debt at the expense of service delivery ” said Councilors in the petition.

Another issue raised by the Councilors in the petition is unremitted Local Service tax. Division Councilors have revealed that Mbarara City Council received local service tax from Mbarara University of  Science and Technology staff and Mbarara City Staff amounting 150.4M and they deliberately refused to remit it to the Divisions.

Councilors also allege that there is mismanagement of property tax and that there is complete lack of information regarding how much is collected as property tax in their respective divisions. This is something that has adversely affected the Divisions’ budgets and the implementation of their projects hence poor service delivery.

From that background in the petition, Councilors pressed the City Mayor to explain on the issues that were presented to him through the petition. Robert Twiine, the Councilor  representing Rwemigina ward, told the City Mayor and his leadership that they have suffocated the Divisions, that  if City Council fails to pay their remittances they should not come back to the Divisions to collect any revenue from there. He further threatened that if their money is not paid the Divisions are going to drag the City Council to Court.

In response, Mayor Robert Kayebezi bitterly attacked and accused the Division Councilors to stop the act of indiscipline and urged them to stop that behavior of coming and invade the meetings that intend to plan for this City.

“I want to request you to be human, never again come and invade our meetings like the way You have done this. this is not proper, this council is not a beehive that you anyhowly enter it the way you want. Don’t squeeze me like that as if i’m your son or someone who grazes your goats at your homes, don’t come here when you are undisciplined. We are here to work closely with you and there is nobody who is interested in suffocating anybody’s work, no no, We are looking at the challenges the Divisions are facing. Actually it’s good you found us in the meeting which we were looking at the time that is remaining towards the end of the financial year, and how are we going to work? We cannot plan ourselves as a city and we fail to plan for you as Divisions. An am sure your challenges will be tackled” said Kakyebezi

Gumisiriza Kyabwisho revealed that as Division Mayors and Mbarara City Council Leadership have had several meetings about the issues concerning remittances of the Divisions but nothing has ever been worked on. He told Mayor Kakyebezi and the City Town Clerk that there are some problems which they don’t want to disclose to the Divisions’ leadership.

“You dig the problem and solve it. In February, I wrote a letter to the City Mayor and the Town Clerk about the demand of our Local Service tax of about Shs 194M, did you release that money to divisions? We also have arrears of Shs 96M, We sat here and made a plan on how you were supposed to pay us in installments but did you pay us that money? We are tired of you people promising us lies, we want to get our money this time, nothing else because we are suffocated and our people need service delivery” said Kyabwisho.

However, according to the Town Clerk Abireebe, he said that the City Council has paid the Divisions and they have received part of the money that they are supposed to have. He said that from the time he entered into office in Mbarara City, the Divisions have been receiving their money every month. He further noted that when it comes to sharing among the two Divisions, Mbarara City North has benefited much more than Mbarara City South Division.

“We have given them their money under the percent. And by the way what they are going to receive will be a bonus.  As far as I know the Divisions have also received their Local Service tax, but am wondering to see them complaining that they were not paid!  The small money that we owe them, we are hoping that when that reallocation comes we shall give them their money. By the way, before I came to Mbarara for this office, these Divisions were not receiving the 30% but now they get it and most of the divisions in some Cities do not receive the 30%. Politics of Mbarara are the ones that are disorganising us, I think somehow let us leave politics aside and we focus on working for the people” said Abireebe.

From the meeting, they have agreed to meet again this Friday to find ways of solving these matters before they escalate.