Mbale Central Market ordered to account for shs30m

By David Oduut

MBALE District Public Affairs Committee has given Mbale Central Main Market authorities up to Tuesday 24 March 2015 to give a detailed accountability of the market funds.

This was pronounced on Wednesday during a meeting where PAC was presenting a special report on the status of the Main Market to stake holders at Mbale Municipal Chambers.

In the PAC report, the Main Market authorities have not fully accounted for over 30 million shillings accumulated in market collections.

Nabende Badru, the chairperson PAC Mbale said out of the 30 Million Shillings collected during the period of July 17th to 17th November 2014, the market authorities only gave an explanation for 12.6 Million shillings.

Nabende said by Tuesday next week, the market authorities should be able to come up with a proper accountability of all the market funds or risk being arrested by police.

“We found that the money the top management of the market had collected was having a shortfall of Sh17.4 Million. So if they do not bring full accountability by Tuesday, we shall hand them over to police.” Nabende said.

He indicated that there have been loopholes in the way market authorities have handled water and electricity bill management in the market.

“The market authorities for instance cannot access the electricity meter box because they have issues with UMEME, so vendors always doubt the bills levied on them.”

David Nabbuka the Vice Chairperson Main Market told the few stakeholders present that his office could not give an immediate account of market funds because PAC delayed to give them communication. He however said come Tuesday, he will ready to give a full accountability.

“I am not a professional in accounts and I imagine those in it are also given time to prepare,” Nabbuka said.

Nabbuka who headed a team of only three out of the 22 executive members however hinted that there was need to have a technical person placed in the market to manage the collection and accountability of revenue generated.

The PAC chairperson echoed his statement saying the lack of proper accountability of funds in the market may be due to a disguised gap between the Central Market executive and the Mbale Municipal technical team.

“Mbale Central Market surprisingly does not even have an active bank account and even the Municipal technical team could not guide them on that.” Nabende Lashed.

He then directed the Town Clerk Mbale Municipal Council to immediately constitute a technical team that will be charged with managing the market.

Edward Lwanga, the town clerk Mbale Municipal Council said a team comprising of the Municipal Chief Commercial Officer, Chief Finance Officer among others are to pitch camp in the Main Market for the next one month to sensitize vendors on revenue collection and help sort out lock-up allocation.

Mbale main market is one of the seven markets government recently redeveloped under the Markets and Agricultural Trade Improvement Programme (MATIP-1), with funding from Government and the African development Bank.