Njeru council leaders protest absence of substantive mayor

Buikwe. Njeru council leaders have asked the Electoral Commission (EC) to organise mayoral elections to pick a substantive mayor for the municipality.

The municipality has operated without a mayor for the last one year since Njeru was elevated to a municipality and this has crippled service delivery according to the leaders.
The leaders accuse the EC of failing to conduct mayoral elections.
Led by Wakisi Division Mayor, Hajj Ayub Lubanga, the local leaders claim absence of a municipal mayor has led to a laissez-faire attitude towards work among civil servants and this has paralysed the implementation of government programmes in the area.

Njeru Municipality, which became operational in the 2016/2017 fiscal year, is currently run by the district leadership following a directive from Local Government minister Tom Butime in November 15, 2016.

“The delay to elect a substantive mayor has caused a lot of problems, everything is on a standstill. The district leadership, which is currently overseeing the operations of the municipality, carry out supervision on a quarterly basis. This has given technocrats a leeway to make decisions as they wish without being checked ,” Mr Lubanga said during an interview with Daily Monitor last Friday.

Mr Lubanga also blamed the district leadership for only passing resolutions which he said favour the district besides sometimes diverting funds meant for municipality to district.

“We have been getting Shs60m as royalties from Bujagaali Dam and sharing it with the district. But since the district leadership is now in charge, they have decided to take all the money urging that the law does not allow the district to share funds with an urban council,” he said.

Mr Lubanga revealed that he was contemplating dragging the district leadership to the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament for probe.

“Shs60m every month is a huge amount of money, we cannot just let them take it,’’ he said.
Mr David Onyango, a councillor representing Nyenga Division at the district, said it was practically impossible to supervise municipal council activities from the district.

“You cannot supervise technocrats from a distance, there must be an immediate person who can put them to task, the district leadership already has its own problems, infrastructure such as roads in their area are in poor state, so why do you overstretch them again with the municipality work?” he asked.

Mr Mathew Njebe, a councillor at Njeru Central Division, said as local leaders they don’t know what goes on at the municipal council offices because the technical staff do not share information with them .

Mr Samson Musoke, a resident in Njeru Town said they are pondering staging a peaceful demonstration to express their frustrations over the delay to hold elections for mayor.
Mr Paul Bukenya, the EC deputy spokesperson, urged local leaders to stay calm, saying they have already drawn a road map for the elections.

What the district chairperson says
Buikwe District chairperson Mathias Kigongo explained that since the three local governments (Nyenga, Wakisi and Njeru) were elevated from sub-counties to divisions, they are not supposed to share funds with the district.

“We used to share royalties with Wakisi when it was still a sub-county, now we cannot share with them, the electricity law states that any company that constructs a dam in a district pays loyalty fees to the district, not municipal council,” he said.
He also dismissed as baseless reports that they are misusing municipality funds and not effectively monitoring work in the area.

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