President Yoweri Museveni has asked a high-level political team chaired by Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja to develop guidelines to operationalise the stay in office for the Local Councils 1 and 2 chairpersons.

The term of office for the 81,220 LCs 1 and 2 chairpersons expires today, July 10, 2023. However, due to lack of finances to conduct fresh elections, the current office-bearers will continue to perform their duties under a special arrangement, according to Nabbanja and local government minister Raphael Magyezi.

Speaking to MPs, Nabbanja said the team is currently developing the guidelines and is expected to report back as soon as possible to avoid creating a vacuum.

“We had a high-level political meeting and the President asked us to come up with the guidelines to operationalise their stay in office. We have no choice because we don’t have a budget to conduct the elections now,” Nabbanja said.

Magyezi told New Vision on Friday that the Attorney General will issue a statutory instrument to allow them to continue in office.

According to Magyezi, the ministry needs shillings 59 billion to conduct the elections, but the finance ministry has not yet released it.

“Their term of office expires on July 10, but unfortunately; we don’t have money to conduct fresh elections. I'm in touch with the Minister of Finance and the Attorney General to ensure that we issue fresh guidelines through a statutory instrument to allow them to continue in office. They are not going away. Their offices will remain working,” Magyezi said.

The current office-bearers were elected in 2018, 17 years after the country conducted such an exercise. During the 17 years, there was a fiasco where the Government lacked finances and the LCs remained in office illegally leading to litigation challenges.

If the elections are conducted, voting will be by lining up behind nominated candidates or their representatives as was in the 2018 elections.

LC1s are the first line of contact for citizens at the village level. They handle issues of security, land transactions, governance and administration, local development programmes and enforce general service delivery, among other functions.

LCs composition

There are 70,626 villages (LC1) and 10,594 parishes (LC2) each with a nine-member committee appointed by their respective chairpersons. Five of those members are elected, which means that at least 400,000 elected positions have to be filled countrywide. The expiry of the term of the chair automatically means that a committee's tenure also lapses.

The committees are constituted by a vice-chairperson and secretaries for children's welfare, security, education, finance, public health, production and environmental protection. They are also representatives for the youth, older persons and persons living with disabilities.

National Women Council

The National Women’s Council is a six-tier structure composed of elected women council leaders beginning at the village level, parish, sub-county, district up to the national level.

The composition of women's councils at the village and parish level includes the chairperson, vice-chairperson, secretary for finance, secretary for publicity and general secretary. At the sub-county and district level, the council brings on board women from special interest groups such as representatives of women with disabilities, female youth, secretary for gender, technical officers and women NGO representatives as ex-officio.