Highlights to Parliament on KCCA 'Lord Mayor'

Nov 17, 2015

Article 79 of the 1995Constitution empowers Parliament to make a law on any matter, in this case, to provide best method to administer better Kampala Capital City for peace order development and good Governance.

By Joseph Kasibante

Article 79 of the 1995Constitution empowers Parliament to make a law on any matter, in this case, to provide best method to administer better Kampala Capital City for peace order development and good Governance.

The on going deliberations by Parliament on the KCCA amendment Bill 2015 should concentrate on harmonising the roles between the Lord Mayor and the Executive Director.

In the above situation, Parliament must first know how the two rather new offices of the Lord Mayor and the Executive Director came into existence..

As the president of National Taxpayers Protection, I was one of those who made  submissions in 2007 before a Commission of Inquiry appointed by then Minister of Local Government to the effect that the problems of financial and administration were rampant in all the five City Divisions due to the political influence of the district mayor, City division, and Municipal chairpersons over the technical officials in awarding of tenders including the collection of council taxes. This culminated into poor revenue income. The best way   I proposed was to do away with the strong Mayor Council and adopt the American City Manager Council.

The answer of the American type of City Manager Council is to entrust most of the executive powers, including law enforcement supervision and provision of services to a highly trained and experienced professional administrator, a quality not usually possessed by elected officials. In a City Manager Government, a small council of high quality councilors is elected to pass laws for the City Manager/Executive Director to implement. City Managers are appointed usually for an indefinite term. In some instances City Managers have been chosen from out-of-town candidates, thus leading to a highly desirable professionalism. Successful candidates without previous experience as City Managers have usually been taken from other government positions equivalent to a permanent secretary, a case with KCCA Executive Director who was hired from URA. Fully satisfied of the status quo of the law the Lord Mayor chose to forfeit his Kampala Central Member of Parliament seat for the new office of the Lord Mayor.

City Manager Government which  itself  is  a full City Government and the executive Lord Mayoralty equally a full Government will continue to conflict unless a post of Speaker to the Council is restored as I have repeated said times again. The office of the Speaker like in Parliament is to harmonies the checks and balances between the executive and legislature. In order this to happen neither of the two executives can act as a Speaker.
The post of Speaker to Parliament is cited in Uganda Constitution Article 184, and that of local Council Speaker in the LGA Cap 243 Section 11.  

My advice to the Parliament is to desist from turning the KCCA Lord Mayor issue into rocket science to fuel problems they may never be able to reverse. Let our Hon. MPs instead holding Ipads like a fashion show, use them to search for useful information.  

When you search internet on the subject of Lord Mayors you will find notice the title is given by all Commonwealth counties to the leaders of their Cities, not for political dominance but as a special title of respect. I hope my reasons will cool the politically charged MPs on this simple issue of KCCA Lord Mayor and the Executive Director.

The writer is the founder chair president Citizens Authority

 

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});