How disputes are tearing Masaka Municipality apart

Many local administrations in any part of the country will always have small fights and disagreements. But the internal bickering of political leaders and technical staff in Masaka Municipality has turned really ugly, leaving town dwellers stuck with poor service delivery.
Masaka Municipality is made up of three divisions: Kimanya/Kyabakuza, Nyendo/Ssenyange, and Katwe/Butego which is also the central business area.

The municipality’s woes date as far as 2007 when then district service commission ordered for the sacking of the deputy town clerk Edward Kiwanuka Gwavvu. He was accused of paying more than Shs280m to Uganda Revenue Authority as Pay As You Earn and Valued Added Tax without negotiating a reduction, which is said to have caused financial loss to the municipality and the district.
However, the decision to sack Gwavvu did not go down well with him and so he dragged Masaka Municipality and the Masaka District administration to Masaka High Court, challenging his sacking.
In 2013, Masaka High Court judge Catherine Bamugemereire ruled in favour of Gwavvu, ordering for his reinstatement as the deputy town clerk. She also ordered Masaka Municipal Council to pay him his salary arrears and costs, amounting to more than Shs200m for unlawful dismissal.

Records indicate that up to today, Masaka Municipality is still paying those fees, on top of reinstating Gwavvu as the deputy town clerk.
This case seemed to have opened the eyes of others. Former employees and service providers also decided to take Masaka Municipality to court. Among these was former principal treasurer Vincent Mpagi who accused Masaka Municipal Council of interdicting him without giving him a fair hearing.
Mpagi and three other municipality officials were accused of effecting double payment of salaries amounting to Shs5,490,000 to health workers. He, however, lost the case. Even then, there were court costs the municipality had to pay.

The mayor, Mr Godfrey Kayemba, says Masaka Municipal Council spends more than Shs50m per quarter on paying costs to individuals and service providers that sue the council for failing to pay them because of lack of funds.
These cases have affected the municipality, leaving it stuck with financial constraints, greatly affecting service delivery since most of the funds that would have been devoted to development projects are used to pay court costs.
A case in point is electricity distributors Umeme, whom Masaka Municipal Council owes more than Shs30m. Because they have not received their payments yet, Masaka District Umeme manager Petra Kyalisiima said they were prompted to disconnect power from street lights on major streets such as Elgin Street, Edward Avenue and Hobart Street, among others.

Masaka Municipality town clerk Joseph Kimbowa, who was by press time on Thursday rumoured to have been transferred from Masaka, says the financial constraints have also greatly affected the running of the municipality since they cannot raise money in time to pay councillors’ allowances. This has created a conflict between the technical staff and the political wing. In fact, Kimbowa says the municipality had almost failed to pass 2014/2015 budget because the councillors were demanding their allowances.
“Even the outgoing [previous] council is demanding payment for at least two council sittings but all this is caused by the financial constraints we have vis a vis other services such as garbage collection and other services which we are supposed to provide to the public,” he says.

The inconsistency in payment of councillors sitting allowances and emoluments did not, of course, go down well with them. They conducted several demonstrations in protest of what they call “intentional decisions” by the technical team to make them suffer.

Mariam Tusiime, the outgoing councillor representing Katwe Ward, says they have spent almost the entire term fighting with the technical staff over their unpaid allowances.
Tusiime says they last received full payments from council authorities in the first quarter of the financial year 2013/2014. Since then, he says, they have been struggling to get their payments – in vain.

Councillors are entitled to 20 per cent of the collected local revenue in the municipality, but because the amount of money Masaka Municipality collects has drastically reduced, the authorities pay the councillors in bits.
“No wonder most of the councillors failed in the concluded elections; they could not concentrate on council business since they were always struggling to get their payments… you remember several council meetings failed because councillors were demanding their allowances,” Tusiime says.
Zahara Nalubyayi, a councillor who represents the youth, says councillors are supposed to get at least Shs320,000 for each sitting, minus taxes. However, they have not been paid for more than four council sittings, adding that they cannot accept to leave the council before they are paid.

“I’m considering mobilising all councillors, including those that lost in the recently concluded local council elections, to sue town clerk Joseph Kimbowa and principal treasurer Sauda Namuleme for refusing to pay us,” she says.
This bickering, according to Tusiime, has seen to it that several resolutions passed by the council are not implemented if the town clerk feels that they are not in the town’s interest.
Henry Busulwa, the former Masaka deputy mayor who lost in the recent local council elections, is in agreement and says almost 60 per cent of the resolutions passed by the council were not implemented.
He goes ahead to blame Kimbowa for this problem and states that the failure to implement some of the resolutions passed has seen Masaka Municipality fail to attain city status, which it has always yearned for.
“Whatever we pass as a council is trashed by the town clerk, the political wing is almost dropping the idea of pushing for city status,” he said.

Some of those resolutions passed, he states, include the beautification of the mayor’s gardens, eviction of roadside washing bays, and disbandment of the area land committees.
But the municipality’s treasurer, Namuleme, has defended delays in payment of councillors’ allowances, saying such delays are at times caused by the central government that delays to send councillors allowances in time.
“We agree there are some delays, but this is not our own making. This is caused by the new system of payment where funds are transferred directly from the Central Bank to dfcu Bank before it is sent to individual councillors’ accounts in several banks,” Namuleme said.

She also says the revenue collected by the municipality has drastically reduced due to conflicts over leadership among taxi operators in Masaka, yet taxi parks are some of the major sources of revenue.
Kimbowa on his part says the delay in implementation of council resolutions is due to lack of enough technical staff that can help carry them out.
“We have to strengthen our enforcement team because our staff is so thin on the ground. Out of 20 people, we need to have on the enforcement team, we only have eight and one is retiring soon. That is why people have continued to encroach on public land and this is costing a lot,” he said.
The mayor, Kayemba, says these fights have also frustrated the desire by town dwellers to have Masaka Municipality elevated to a city status.

“No area that is messed up like Masaka can obtain a city status, because most of the resolutions the council makes take long to be implemented. But we are considering annexing neighbouring sub-counties to Masaka Municipality so that we can increase on the population of the town,” he says.
What is happening in Masaka seems to be the case in other local governments elsewhere.
In Bukomansimbi District, Hajj Muhamad Kateregga, the district chairperson, has also been complaining about intentionally delayed implementation of resolutions passed by the district council.

Katerega says the delayed or at times non-implementation of resolutions passed greatly affects service delivery in the district.
In Kalungu, the outgoing council had been embroiled in wrangles for years till they censured the district speaker over abuse of office and incompetence among other reasons.
However, the censured district speaker, Rafael Kiseeka, dragged the district to court that ordered for his reinstatement and awarded him costs of more than Shs150m in March 2015.
Until some resolutions can be made to break the impasse, Masaka might continue to find herself trapped in the undesirable state she is in.

Masaka suffers as leaders bicker

Bickering, according to some leaders, has seen to it that several resolutions passed by the Masaka Municipal Council are not implemented if the town clerk feels that they are not in the town’s interest.
Henry Busulwa, the former Masaka deputy mayor who lost in the recent local council elections, is in agreement and says almost 60 per cent of the resolutions passed by the council were not implemented.
He goes ahead to blame the town clerk for this problem and states that the failure to implement some of the resolutions passed has seen Masaka Municipality fail to attain city status, which it has always yearned for.
“Whatever we pass as a council is trashed by the town clerk, the political wing is almost dropping the idea of pushing for city status,” he said.
Some of those resolutions passed, he states, include the beautification of the mayor’s gardens, eviction of roadside washing bays (pictured above), and disbandment of the area land committees.

Masaka Residents Speak out

Peter Mutesasira, photographer: “The conflicts in local councils greatly affect the members of the community who pay a lot of taxes to the authorities. Masaka Municipality spent more than Shs40m to buy a piece of land where to dump garbage in 2013, but up to now the area has never been developed because of the bickering between the municipality technical staff and politicians. You find most of the streets littered and people dumping garbage everywhere because the municipality authorities at times delay to pick up garbage because they don’t have a dumping site.”

Shifah Katerega, director of Human Rights Defenders Masaka: “A big number of green spaces and public land, including the public cemetery, have been allocated to private developers. But Masaka Municipal Council has failed to implement a resolution to disband the land committees that are involved in these dubious land deals.”

Musa Wamala, proprietor of Wamala Technical Services: “The town is in a mess because of the wrangles between the municipality technical staff and politicians. A big number of buildings that are emerging in Masaka Town are built without approved building plans because of corruption in the physical planning office. With such structures that are built without approved plans, we risk losing people’s lives when these buildings collapse on people.”