Ben Moses Ocan, the Kuywee Sub County LCIII Chairperson says they haven't yet received their salaries for the past eight months ever since they were sworn into office in May last year.
LCIII Chairpersons
in the newly created administrative units in Agago district are protesting the
delayed payment of their salary arrears and release of operational funds.
The affected
units include the new town councils of Wol, Paimol, Adilang, Lira-Palwo, and
Lai-Mutu; while the new sub Counties are Agengo, Laperebong, Kuywee, Ajali, and
Lira-Kato.
Ben Moses
Ocan, the Kuywee Sub County LCIII Chairperson says they haven't yet received
their salaries for the past eight months ever since they were sworn into office
in May last year.
According to
Ocan, they are entitled to a monthly pay of 400,000 Shillings therefore they are
demanding 3.2 Million Shillings in salary arrears.
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Sam Santo
Ongom, the LC III Chairperson for Adilang Town Council says ever since the new
administrative units were created no funding has been dispersed for their
operation which has greatly impacted negatively on service delivery to the
community. According to Ongom, the newly created administrative units are
mainly depending on the local revenue collection, which is not only meager but
also inadequate to cater for running all lawful council businesses.
Ongom says
that the budgets were subsequently submitted to the district for development
funds to be released to enable them to provide services to their community.
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the community"//
The Agago Vice
LCV Chairperson Morris Ocana who is also the Secretary for Finance and Administration
partly attributes the delay to failure by the Finance Ministry to release
funding for the new administrative units despite disbursing funds for the old
units.
According to
Ocana, the number of Sub County LCIII Chairpersons rose up from 16 to 26
causing a funding shortfall of over 204 million shillings to cater for
emoluments, ex-gratia, and honoraria for elected leaders at the lower local
government level and operations of the new administrative units.
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The Agago
Chief Administrative Officer Stephen Oloya Gunya, acknowledges the delays which
he says is entirely due to a lack of budgetary allocation to cater for their
emoluments and operations of the administrative units which are being
experienced countrywide.
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Oloya
however says a supplementary budget of parliament to facilitate the operations
of the newly created administrative units and paying emoluments of lower local
government has been passed and all the arrears will be made within the third
quarter of this financial year.
Dan Michael Komakech
Freelancer