Women leaders' blame poor services delivery on Govt

BY ESTHER NAMIRIMU

The Women’s Taskforce (WTF) has blamed poor government service delivery on late transfer of funds from the Ministry of Finance to the district level.

WTF converged at Kampala Kolping Hotel from Thursday 6 to Friday 7 of this month.

The group expressed discontent about the government’s failure to allocate quarter’s funds for essential sectors like education, water and health.

Harriet Musoke, coordinator of Isis-Women International Cross Cultural Exchange (Isis-WICCE) said that the government’s failure to cater for these sectors is a major blow to the economy.

Veronica Ocan, a member of WTF from Agago district added that government funds take long to be transferred to district levels which affect service delivery since there is no money to run the projects.

Ocan also said that with the bureaucracy, the money ends up not being used and sent back to Ministry of Finance.

She further said that there is poor service delivery in all health centers in her area which include Palwo health center III, Lanyirinyiri health center II, and Lamiyo health center II.

“There is a huge crack on the ceiling of the maternity ward of Palwo health center III and the ceiling might fall anytime soon. There are also too many bats which produce a foul,”

Jacob Bilal, program coordinator of Women and Rural Development Network (WORUDET) in Pader district said that during the monitoring and evaluation exercise, through a conversation with one of the contractors, he found out that there is too much corruption in the procurement office at district level.

Bilal added that contractors end up doing shoddy work because they have to compensate for money spent on bribes.

Bedha Kireju Balikudembe, Communications coordinator of Isis-WICCE said that the WTF has been instrumental in influencing gender responsiveness of the government’s Peace, Recovery and Development Plan for Northern Uganda (PRDP).

He also said that by the close of PRDP1, the WTF was influential and had gained access to two PRDP monitoring and coordination structures.

“The efforts of the WTF yielded results with the draft PRDP II recognized Sexual Gender Based Violence as a major factor that undermines women’s participation and empowerment,” Bedha said.

He went ahead to say that the PRDP programme areas recognize the need to deal with trauma and mental health issues, train the police and sensitize.