Shs400m road project cash cannot be traced
Stalled. A section of Mango Road in Nvura Ward, Anyafio Cell in Arua Municipality whose construction has stalled due to diversion of funds. PHOTO BY FELIX WAROM OKELLO.
What you need to know:
- In an earlier press briefing in Arua Municipal boardroom on Monday, Mr Wadri called for transparency and warned leaders against diversion of funds if the municipality is to develop.
- Mr Wadri said if the procedures for using the money was not followed, the officers concerned must refund the money.
Arua. At least Shs400 million that was meant to tarmac Mango Road in Arua Municipality cannot be traced.
Works on the 0.8 kilometre Mango Road in Nvura Ward, Anyafio Cell, have since stalled after the Inspectorate of Government (IGG) called for investigations into the whereabouts of the money.
The money was channelled to the municipality account from Uganda Road Fund and government has since suspended the road construction.
Speaking to Daily Monitor on Monday, the deputy town clerk, Mr Cornelius Jobile, admitted that the money was released to the municipality account and that they are making effort to have the money paid back.
“We can’t explain exactly what went wrong but from the explanation we got from the finance department, I think this money was accidentally diverted to cater for other activities because we are running a single treasury account where all money comes to a common pool,” Mr Jobile said.
He added that the anomaly is an institutional problem.
He said the municipality must recover the money from local revenue because this was a conditional fund. The project was to be implemented in three stages.
Implementation started in 2016/17 financial year and it was meant to be completed within the same financial year.
Since then, the road has developed potholes.
The Arua Municipality MP, Mr Kassiano Wadri, said on Monday that money should be put to its intended purpose.
“I emphasised the issue of transparency with the Arua Municipality leadership because in all paradigm of development, if there is no transparency and no trust among people in sharing information, that institution cracks and crumbles.”
In an earlier press briefing in Arua Municipal boardroom on Monday, Mr Wadri called for transparency and warned leaders against diversion of funds if the municipality is to develop.
Mr Wadri said if the procedures for using the money was not followed, the officers concerned must refund the money.
