Dokolo district limps over absence of council meetings

Feb 28, 2019

Dokolo district was curved from Lira district in 2006 but Ocuku said the district started well till now when they are seeing themselves failing to have council meetings.

LEADERSHIP 

The speaker of Dokolo district local government council, Daniel Ocuku has said the way the council sessions were failing to go on in the normal way was an indication that they were limping. Ocuku said the council meetings had failed to take place since last year in November.

Dokolo district was curved from Lira district in 2006 but Ocuku said the district started well till now when they are seeing themselves failing to have council meetings.

Ocuku said that the central government was doing its obligation of sending huge amounts of funds on quarterly basis in the district. However, he said, the council and statutory bodies were failing to be facilitated.

He added that the district had been spending sh11m per sitting but since November last year, it had reduced to only sh8m.

The funds, he said were being generated by the district from unconditional grants and local revenue but wondered why they could not facilitate and pay council emoluments.

He noted that was undergoing immense pressure from some of his councilors who were impatient as their payments had delayed.

According to Local Government Act, council meetings are supposed to sit after every two months while the allowances are supposed to be calculated from 20% of local revenue of the previous financial year.

"I expect to have a council meeting in March. It may be putting my office at risk if we fail to have one. We shall forge away forward to ensure that, we do not keep on limping,"Ocuku said.

This follows after some councilors; James Otoo Apili of Adeknino sub county and Christopher Odwe of Dokolo sub county demanded to know why they had taken long without having council meetings as mandated by the Local Government Act.

Some of the councilors said they could even have council meetings without allowances since they were having some pressing issues from their sub counties.

Otoo said that the council business did not mean having money but some of them had come to represent the voices of their local people.

"We have to look beyond emoluments and ensure service delivery for our people,"Otoo said.

Another councilor who is the chairperson of works and technical services, Christopher Odwe said the issue of looking at money every time was going to affect service delivery in the district.

CAO's response

The Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) of Dokolo, Moses Echate said indeed they had taken some time without having council meetings but it did not mean they were limping.

He said there is shortage of resources that accrues from local revenue adding that the money they had was used for taking the councilors on a tour.

He added that they were looking for some money to have committee meetings soon.

Meanwhile the LC5 of Dokolo, district Fredrick Odongo said there was no cause of alarm as the district executive committee (DEC) was there to do the work on behalf of the council.

Odongo said in case of absence of the council meetings, the district executive meeting is always there every month at no cost to see that the district runs well.

However, he noted that the office of clerk was already in touch with the office of the CAO to see how a council meeting can be had.

Whereas the council meetings are a requirement in local government as far as decentralization is concerned, sometimes shortage of money makes it hard to have the six mandatory council meetings in a year.

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