By Ahmed Senoga
The Local Government Finance Commission has called on Government to put in place a specific law to regulate financing of Local Governments.
Commission Chairperson – Dr. Agnes Atim Apea says the objective of the law would be to secure sound, predictable and sustainable management of financial affairs of Local Governments as per Article 176 of the Constitution.
Dr. Agnes Atim Apea says efforts need to be made to ensure that funds meant for decentralized services are removed from the votes of Ministries, Departments and agencies (MDAs), and directly transferred to Local Governments during the financial year.
She notes that there is a lot of money that remains unused in MDAs yet it is meant to operationalize activities of Local Governments.
Dr. Agnes Atim Apea raised the concerns while presenting the Local Government Finance Commission annual Performance reports for the financial years 2017/2018, 2018/2019 and 2019/2020, to Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga.
Rt Hon Rebecca Alitwala Kadaga says MDAs do not have implementing structures in districts and are hindering the work of Local Governments by keeping money allocated in the budget.
Speaker Kadaga has also reiterated the need to set a law to provide for adequate funding to Local Government.
Speaker Kadaga has said that she has engaged the Minister for Local Government to bring a law to Parliament that will operationalize the newly created cities.
