The proposal, being championed by Masaka City Mayor Florence Namayanja and Martin Kigozi, the Principal Physical Planner, is part of efforts to halt the unchecked expansion of slums, which is contributing to the city's disarray.
Francis Kimuli, the Masaka District Council Speaker, announced the decision to surrender the headquarters after consultations with key stakeholders, including Local Government Minister Raphael Magyezi.
Tom Luyobya, the Secretary for Finance and Technical Planning Committee in Masaka City Council observes that many opportunistic individuals have taken over some of the housing units and created plots with the estates, claiming to have obtained lease offers for the assets.
Rogers Bulegeya, the Masaka City Male Youth representative seconded the motion, indicating that they have registered numerous public complaints about the conduct of officials of the buildings review committee, who are accused of corruption.
Ssempijja who is the councilor representing Kimanya-Kabonera division was impeached on Wednesday in a majority vote, during an extraordinary council session presided over by the Minister of Local Government Raphael Magyezi, assited by the Ministry’s Permanent Secretary Ben Kumumanya.
A section of councilors is plotting the removal of Ssempijja from office, accusing him of misusing his power to mistreat councilors, exerting undue supremacy over them, and neglecting his parental responsibilities, which puts the council in public disrepute.
The city council leadership had planned to relocate its offices to the current district headquarters at Kitabiro cell, Nyendo-Mukungwe division, in line with the guidance by the Attorney General instructing the leadership of mother districts whose headquarters had been swallowed in the boundaries of the newly created cities, to find alternative sites for their administrative offices.
Wamala is accused of undertaking construction works that deviate from the approved plans by the building committee hence causing substantial damage to the open green space, measuring about 2 acres.
The speaker had called the council session to discuss quarterly reports by the different committees as well as to consider resolutions of the executive committee on the intervention towards preventing the spread of the Ebola virus in the area.
Vincent Kasumba, the President of Masaka City Development Forum, a stakeholder engagement platform that is charged with overseeing the implementation of the projects, says the city is finding it hard to carry out maintenance works on some of the earlier completed infrastructure projects.
In the last three consecutive financial years, Masaka City council has returned to the consolidated fund close to 32 billion shillings out of the shillings 90 billion conditional funding meant for major infrastructural development works.
The leaders argue that the city spends huge sums of money to cater for the routine manual road maintenance, but the work is not commensurate with the expenditures.
The misunderstanding played out openly last Friday when Andrew Lukyamuzi Batemyetto, the Masaka LC V chairperson furiously blocked attempts by Martin Kigozi, the Masaka City Physical Planner to survey land and remodel the current district headquarters. Kigozi had embarked on the survey and remodeling of the district headquarters to prepare for the city to occupy it.
According to Nakafeero some of the land titles are only in photocopies while several others can't be traced completely and are currently occupied by private individuals who claim to have lawfully obtained them from the former Municipal council leaders.
Engineer Flavia Bwire, the Executive Secretary of NBRB, who inaugurated the committee indicated that it is charged with ensuring effective enforcement of the National Building Control Act of 2013, which is aimed at guiding proper structural development and construction of buildings in the country.
Florence Namayanja, Masaka City Mayor together with security and the technical teams, condemned the leadership of the association for abusing the agreement granted to them to manage the taxi industry on behalf of the City Council.
Godfrey Bemanyisa, the Masaka City Clerk, says that the current arrangement is inconveniencing them hence the need to put all administration offices under one building to ease coordination of services and staff.
The Masaka City Roads Committee has unanimously resolved to formally petition the Inspector General of Government-IGG to investigate the two officials for alleged abuse of offices and corruption.
The committee chaired by the Kimanya-Kabonera Division Member of Parliament Abed Bwanika learnt that the city has under unclear circumstances lost a lot of its properties that including land in green spaces and road reserves.
