New municipalities may not succeed without devolution

By Okodan Akwap

Last week, President Museveni approved the creation of 11 new municipalities for Ibanda, Kamuli, Kira, Kisoro, Kitgum, Koboko, Kumi, Makindye, Mubende, Nansana and Njeru.

Local Government Minister, Adolf Mwesige, is probably seeking a nod from MPs this week. Given the current political excitement in our country, he’s unlikely to fail.

Mwesige says the new municipalities “… will attract investments and spur organised urban development leading to an increase in the number of residential, commercial and industrial buildings which will generate increasingly more local revenue.” 

 No doubt, this is a good argument. The problem is that we are not addressing shortcomings in the decentralisation framework under which these new municipalities will be operating.

Since the enactment of the Local Governments Act, 1997, Uganda has made commendable strides in two specific forms of decentralisation.

First, under administrative decentralisation (also known as de-concentration), there has been some real shifting of some of the workload from central government ministries to local governments.

Secondly, delegation has seen the central government transferring responsibilities for decision-making, management authority and administration of public functions to local governments and other semi-autonomous organisations not wholly controlled by the Government.

The Government, however, has always stopped short of devolution, which would have seen the shifting of most of the workload for public management, decision-making and financial allocations to local governments, with the centre retaining responsibility for macro-economic stability and distribution of proceeds from national assets such as oil and minerals.

Local governments derive their revenues from financial transfers from the central government and local sources.

However, according to some researchers, the existing formula for transfers, based on area and population, is contentious.

It is apparent, though, that some of the new municipalities would be much more viable economic entities than others, if the Government let them to not only elect their mayors and MPs, but also to raise their own revenues and have independent authority to make investment decisions.

For instance, Makindye, where I work, is a vibrant city suburb bustling with the kind of round-the-clock commercial activity that is not found in a sleepy town such as Kumi, where I live.

To make a significant difference, therefore, the Government needs to step back considerably and let residents in more viable municipalities – new and older – to exercise their rights to make decisions over the use of local resources, not merely to choose leaders during elections.

Indeed, our entire local council (LC) system needs a thorough overhaul. By design, the hierarchy of this system was supposed to support the dissemination of government policies from the top downwards to local communities and to pass people’s views upwards.

However, studies have over the years shown that the system is wanting. In 2001, Prof. Fumihiko Saito from Japan’s Ryukoku University conducted research in Kampala, Mukono, Rakai and Tororo districts and found that the system functioned more as a top-down mechanism; people claimed that LC meetings were often called at short notice and the agenda already decided.

In a 2007 report commissioned by the Commonwealth Local Government Forum, Yasin Olum and John Kiyaga-Nsubuga asserted that in most cases, the citizens of this country have had little understanding of their local economies.

A study I conducted between 2010 and 2013 in Makindye Division found that local residents were largely at sea about the legal requirement for Makindye and the other four divisions in Kampala – Central, Kawempe, Nakawa and Rubaga – to remit 50% of locally generated revenue to City Hall to be controlled by bureaucrats there.

Two key things the Government should consider before further creation of counties, municipalities or districts are: implementing devolution and investing hugely in mass mobilisation, sensitisation and skilling programmes to empower citizens to take charge of their development agenda.

Carving up the country with eyes fixed on political calculations may never lift us out of poverty.

The writer is a lecturer at Kampala International University