KCCA | COUNCIL | MEETINGS

KAMPALA - The state minister for Kampala, Kabuye Kyofatogabye, has appealed to the Government for additional funding to help avert a looming crisis at City Hall. 

While facing appearing before Parliament’s Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises on Thursday, Kyofatogabye said persistent budget cuts have constrained the operations of KCCA’s technical and political wing.  

He pointed out that as leaders, they have reached a point where they need to take some drastic decisions to stay afloat. 

“The KCCA Act mandates a minimum of four council meetings a year but here is an organisation that can have 12 or 15 council meetings in a given financial year and this is where I need your help to facilitate the legislative role of the council, especially in the coming financial year,” Kyofatogabye said. 

“Even this year, we had to look for a supplementary. Now in the next coming year, it has been reduced by almost sh20b,” he added. 

According to the approved budget, the entity was supposed to receive sh316.89b out of which sh316.67b was disbursed. This resulted in a shortfall of about sh220m. 

“I would request you to add your voice. If I don’t get these additional resources, the next financial year is going to become harder. We might not even manage to facilitate even the minimum four,” Kyofatogabye added. 

As a cost-cutting measure, the minister wants plenary sessions to be trimmed so as to save on how much is paid out to councillors as sitting allowance, to fund other critical committees. 

“We now have 56 councillors and pay a total of sh28.6m per sitting. You can round it off to sh30m. Now if you multiply that by four [minimum sittings] that’s sh120m. Normally, we budget for about 10 sittings which comes to sh300m. So, anything beyond that is stretching,” Kyofatogabye illustrated. 

Councillors react 

Some KCCA council members rejected Kyofatogabye’s proposal, claiming that it is aimed at aimed stopping the council from discussing sticky issues in the 2023/24 draft budget.  

“Our stand is very clear. We didn’t come to get salaries or allowances. Our priority is to improve service delivery and effectively represent the people. We can still go on without allowances,” stated Rubaga North councillor, James Mubiru. 

“These councils are the lower parliament. I was talking to some of the councillors and these people don’t declare particular revenue centres. They have very many things that are in the budget, particularly their local figures are very low, and they wanted to debate that in the council. Now by skipping it, they feel it was intentional,” Eng. Richard Sebamala the Bukoto Central councillor said.