LC1 elections postponed

Consultations. Muyenga LC1 chairman Yasin Omar (right) and other LC chairpersons appear before the Committee on Public Service and Local Government at Parliament recently. PHOTO BY ERIC DOMINIC BUKENYA.

What you need to know:

On hold. The ruling party’s Central Executive Committee on Friday resolved that a new election date will be communicated by the new EC after Parliament has passed the proposed Amendment to Local Government Act and the President has cleared the law.

Kampala. The long-awaited Local Council 1 elections will not take place on January 17, Sunday Monitor can reveal.
The ruling party’s Central Executive Committee (CEC) chaired by President Museveni, on Friday agreed that a new election date will be communicated by the new Electoral Commission (EC) after Parliament has passed the proposed Amendment to Local Government Act and the President has cleared the law.
Sources at the State House Entebbe meeting told Sunday Monitor that the NRM’s big wigs also agreed that more time should be given to the EC and the political parties to enable them prepare for the polls and tasked Justice minister Kahinda Otafiire to ensure that the new team at EC is sworn in.
The EC spokesperson, Mr Jotham Taremwa, said: “That date of January 17 didn’t come from us. For us, we are waiting for amendments to be passed by Parliament and assented to by the President. You cannot talk of a timeframe when you don’t have an enabling legal provision. Let’s be patient and wait for the new amendments to be passed then we shall come to the question of roadmap after.”
The CEC meeting, confirmed by NRM’s secretary general Kasule Lulumba, who declined to disclose the details since CEC meetings are always confidential, was according to sources intended to strategise ahead of the polls. At a recent press conference, Ms Lumumba indicated that the party was taking LC elections seriously and promised to defeat the Opposition even as NRM electoral commission chairman, Dr Tanga Odoi, complained that the party did not have money to organise the polls.

Leaked report
A leaked report of the Parliament’s Public Service and Local Government Committee charged with guiding Parliament on the proposed amendments, has recommended that the LC1 elections take place within 60 days from the date of gazetting the proposed enabling laws and regulations. Parliament is expected to debate the proposed amendments next week.
The committee has also recommended that the LC1 chairpersons they have disparaged as “extortionists” should stop charging [10 per cent] surcharge on land transactions. For witnessing agreements, LC1 chairpersons charge up to 10 per cent of the cost of total transaction, especially on land matters. The MPs have, however, proposed a ban on such payments and asked government to come up with new guidelines.
The committee, chaired by Mr Raphael Magyezi, in its report to Parliament, also held government responsible for the breach of Article 181 (4) of the Constitution, which states: “All local government councils shall be elected every four years.”
The MPs noted with concern that for the last 15 years, the country has not had LC1 elections in breach of the Constitution.

Although Parliament reserves the final decision on any matter before the committees, the Magyezi committee, like NRM’s CEC members, has also proposed in its majority report that the local council elections be postponed to enable political parties and the EC to prepare and put in place all the necessary logistics.

The latest committee recommendation comes in the wake of sharp differences of opinion between Finance ministry and EC authorities over money required to hold the polls in the country’s 57, 842 villages and 7,431 parishes.

Sunday Monitor understands that Mukono Municipality MP Betty Nambooze disagreed with the majority after the MPs recommended that the election of councillors in the new municipalities be suspended until such a time when the government gets the money for the polls. In a minority report, Ms Nambooze argued that before the creation of the new municipalities, government tabled a certificate of financial implication for the provision of leadership and insisted that “the argument that there is no money for the polls does not hold water”.

The committee has recommended that Shs10.7b be provided for LC1 and LC2 polls, Shs3.2b for women elections and Shs1.97b be provided for any additional activities. In the minority report, Ms Nambooze protests the Shs3b to women as “peanuts”.

What they say...

“It is not feasible to have those elections on January 17 when up to now the processes are not yet rolled out. I find the extension of the timeframe to 60 days untenable given the delays we have already experienced. It could be a ploy to put the elections off indefinitely,”
Erias Lukwago, Kampala Lord Mayor

“The 60 days proposed by the committee seem reasonable. All parties should take these elections seriously and immediately embark on mobilising at the grassroots. The most influential structures during any election is the LC. You ignore it at your peril,”
Abdul Katuntu, Bugweri County MP