KCCA diverted youth fund to purchase land

By MOSES MULONDO & PAUL KIWUUWA

MPs on the Local Government Committee on Monday grilled the Kampala executive Director Jennifer Musisi for diverting part of the youth fund into other "non-core" activities.

The MPs became furious when they learnt that out of the 16.5b government allocated for the youth job stimulus package, Musisi allocated the youth only 3.3 and used the biggest percentage of the fund to purchase what MPs called "questionable land transactions" to build markets for the youth.

The matter came up during proceedings of the probe by the committee following a petition by the Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago seeking the intervention of parliament on the "mismanagement" of KCCA by Jennifer Musisi.

Mukono Municipality MP Betty Nambooze alleged that whereas the money had been meant to be distributed to the youth to start income generating activities, Musisi used much of the money into buying land for establishing markets "to cater for street vendors she had evicted from the streets of Kampala".
From the proceedings of the committee, it emerged that whereas government had allocated 16.5b to the Kampala youths, only 9.8b was released of which Musisi returned sh2b back to government coffers.

"It was wrong for you to transfer sh2b back to the government when you had actually got less than (sh9.8b of what was in the budget (16.5b)  even after you diverted money meant for solving the unemployment problem among the youth to purchase land for markets," said Raphael Magyezi, the Igara County West MP.

Musisi explained that the money they used to buy land for the markets was well utilized as it would also help curb the unemployment problem by creating peripheral market space in Kampala suburbs.  

The MPs also queried the sh226.7m which Musisi had in her response indicated was used on administrative expenses.  They wanted an explanation why such a huge amount of money meant for the youth was spent on administrative expenses yet the KCCA administrators get salaries and allowances for their administration.  

In response, the KCCA director for gender and community service Harriet Mudondo explained to the MPs that they had used part of the money to carry out sensitization for the youths and to run adverts in the media.

 Sensitization meetings, she added have been conducted in all the divisions and the youths have started accessing the money. Eighty individual loans and 29 group loans have been disbursed, she added.

Musisi also surprised the MPs when she failed to give her interpretation of who between the Lord Mayor and the Executive Director should be the head of Kampala Capital City Authority.

It happened that after Musisi read section 11 and section 19 on the roles of the Lord Mayor and the Executive Director, the MPs asked her for interpretation of who heads the authority and she said, "I think this matter can be referred to the Attorney General for interpretation. I have nothing to say beyond what I have read."

Section 11 of the KCCA Act says the Lord Mayor is the political head of the authority and section 19 gives the Executive Director power to head the administration, public relations and to be the accounting officer for the authority.

But when probed further, Musisi said, "I also don't know what the intention of the legislators was. The KCCA Act does not clarify on who heads the authority. I expect this committee to make recommendations concerning these challenges."

In his Petition, Lukwago informed parliament that Musisi had usurped the powers of the political leaders of the capital city.