Ministry gives start-up funds to new sub-counties, towns
Mr Patrick Ocailap, the deputy secretary to the Treasury. PHOTO | FILE
What you need to know:
- A highly-placed source in the Ministry of Local Government said town councils and sub-counties are each getting Shs50 million and Shs31 million, respectively.
The Ministry of Finance has confirmed the release of start-up funds to districts for the operationalisation of the newly created 364 sub-counties and 352 town councils.
“The money has been released but you can get the breakdown from the Ministry of Local Government,” Mr Patrick Ocailap, the deputy secretary to the Treasury, told Daily Monitor yesterday.
A highly-placed source in the Ministry of Local Government said town councils and sub-counties are each getting Shs50 million and Shs31 million, respectively.
The source said the money came from a supplementary of Shs93b which the Cabinet passed and Parliament approved.
“After this start-up funds, they will be getting what others that those on board are already getting. They will get their development fund, road fund, wage bill and so on. They will be fully self-accounting,” the source added.
“So the Ministry of Finance is going to submit the money to the mother districts for them to also forward to the administrative units. The districts should also ask for a supplementary budget because it was not in their [original] budget. But for them to get it, they have to request for it, and the Ministry of Finance will forward it to them so that they give the administrative units,” the source said.
This newspaper last year reported the State Minister of Local Government, Ms Victoria Businge Rusoke, as saying the government was set to operationalise newly-created town councils and sub-counties across the country effective mid-November last year.
The government has also in the recent past faced a lot of criticism from politicians for creating more administrative units and leaving them non-operational due to lack of funds amid poor service delivery in operational units.
In a related development, the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, Mr Ramathan Ggoobi, has released indicative planning figures to local government authorities for 2022/2023 financial year.
A February 24 letter addressed to all local government accounting officers shows that the government is expecting around Shs212 billion from local governments in 2022/2023 financial year as local revenue.
“Your respective local revenue indicative planning figures have been calculated based on pro-rata basis taking into consideration performance for the current financial year,” the letter reads in part.
The local revenue projection for each local government authority varies considerably with Wakiso District expected to generate about Shs15b while Nabilatuk District in Karamoja Sub-region is expected to generate around Shs78m in the 2022/2023 financial year. Administrative units.
Statistics from the Ministry of Local government indicate that there are 2,184 sub-counties and 580 town councils in 135 districts. There are also 10 cities and 31 municipalities.
