MPs throw out Cabinet motion to re-allocate funds to new cities

Parliament yesterday threw out a motion for the re-allocation of funds to newly created cities, on grounds that it was conflicting with the law.

The motion presented by the Minister of State for Planning, Mr David Bahati, was to the effect that funds in the approved budget be re-directed towards operationalising the new cities.
The Speaker and members rejected the motion and tasked Cabinet to respect the law.

“You needed to bring a law to facilitate the creation of authorities of those cities. You can’t amend the Appropriation Act by resolution. We appropriated these funds for particular functions,” Ms Kadaga said.

“If they are going to be altered, you come with an Appropriation Amendment Bill, which should go to the Committee and be discussed,” Ms Kadaga said.

The Speaker said Cabinet should have a clear resource pool for the cities and not tamper with the budget.
She also tasked the Cabinet to cure the confusion between new cities and existing municipalities.

“Do we assume the cities substituted the municipalities, if they did, do we assume there are no municipalities, how do they fit in?” she asked before adding that, “this is premature, sort out the legal status of these cities,” she said.

The Speaker also demanded to know the accounting officers in the new cities, insisting that the Executive has not provided the House with a list of those to be held accountable for the taxpayers’ money.

Parliament on April 28, approved the creation of 15 cities, of which 10 commenced on July 1. They include Arua, Gulu, Jinja, Mbarara, Fort Portal, Masaka, Mbale, Soroti, Lira and Hoima.

The rest, such as Nakasongola, Entebbe, Moroto, Kabale and Wakiso are to be operationalised in a phased manner.
The creation, however, did not come with a budget, putting government in a crisis, where their option was to revise the expenditure.

In his argument, Mr Bahati said given that the annual budget for 2020/2021 was passed before the commencement of these cities, funds allocated to municipalities, where cities were created, be diverted to the cities.
For example, Shs21.69b had been earmarked for Fort Portal, Shs26b for Arua City and Shs35b for Jinja City, Shs42.68b for Mbale, among others.

The motion was, however, defeated after Dokolo South MP Felix Okot-Ogong raised legal concerns and questioned whether a law passed by Parliament can simply be altered through a motion instead of an Amendment Bill.
He cited a case of Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) Act that was enacted to operationalise KCCA.

“How are we going to work with the money passed and yet the money passed belongs to different votes of municipalities? How are you going to do that without changing the Appropriation Act, which is also a law?” Mr Okot asked.

Shadow Attorney General Wilfred Niwagaba (Ind, Ndorwa East) tasked the minister to explain if in creating the cities, government had dissolved the existing municipalities that were created under Local Government Act
No answers came, and it is on this ground that the Speaker ruled that the minister revises his motion.
This implies that at the moment, cities have no funds for their operationalisation until the government presents a Bill for their funding.

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