Scorecard lists success, failures in local govts

The annual assessment and ranking of local governments performance has helped improve the quality of service delivery in the country, a new report says.

But the report by Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment (Acode) also says the gains of assessing the work by councils are being eroded by poor funding to local governments (LGs) by the central government. The report also cites lack of capacity and a string of other anomalies originating from the centre.

Titled, ‘impact of the local government councils’ scorecard initiative, strengthening demand for effective public service delivery and accountability,’ the report says Uganda’s decentralisation journey has been a mixture of successes, challenges and reversals.

“There is continued weakening of local government structures, systems and processes that cannot effectively deliver on their oversight, legislative, planning and budgeting mandates. There is a diminishing interface between local governments and the central government line ministry mandated with supervision, monitoring and capacity building, which has largely affected the functionality of local governments,” the report says.

Background

The local council scorecard was first released in 2009 with only 10 districts. However, over time, more districts were included, now totalling 35 districts, 12 municipalities, and eight cities.

Mr Jonas Mbabazi, the programme manager for the scorecard at Acode, said the central government must prioritise training for all local councils to conduct oversight and accountability for resources at the local government level among other functions of local councils. 

He also said the devolved functions of local councils needs must be adequately financed by the central government to enable LGs deliver on their mandates.

“The LGs are currently grappling with inadequate financing of service delivery interventions and have so many unfunded priorities due to resource limitations. Under the decentralisation framework, the local governments should ensure active participation of citizens in the design, implementation, monitoring of interventions at the LG level to ensure ownership and guarantee success and sustainability,” he said.

The report

The report says while the initial focus of the scorecard was to enhance political accountability and citizen participation, several positive impacts have been registered, including improved debates  in  district  councils,  increased  monitoring  of  service delivery by elected leaders, improved relationships between the  political and technical leaders and re-election of good performers during the general election cycles.

But the report also says a research by Acode titled, ‘A comprehensive review of decentralization, and ‘Analysis of Local government financing in FY2019/20’, highlighted a number of challenges.

Key among these were the glaring waning political support for the implementation of decentralisation, recentralisation of local government functions and the creation of many smaller unviable local governance entities with the number of district increasing to 135 while 11 cities have also been created.

The report says funding from the central government to local governments is still inadequate, yet the local governments heavily depend on central government transfers for revenue of over 90 per cent.

In 2021/2022 financial year, local governments across the country were allocated a total of Shs4.8 trillion.

The report says while local governments have been suffering, a study done by Acode in 2019/2020 budget showed that Shs1 trillion was being held by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), which the report says is inconsistent with the Local Governments Act.

“It was also noted that the MDAs were planning to use this money to implement activities or projects which were under the mandate of the local governments,” the report says.

This, the report says is compounded by meagre local revenue collection and withholding of resources meant for decentralized functions by central government ministries, departments and agencies in contravention of the law.

The report also says a review of the non-wage recurrent and development releases by the Finance ministry to LGs, showed that whereas the Public Finance Management (Amendment) Act, 2015, requires all grants to be released by the 10th day of the beginning month of a quarter, MoFPED had in some instances not fulfilled that requirement.

It says failure to release funds within the stipulated time affects timely implementation of planned activities by LGs which sometimes results in unspent balances that are later returned to the consolidated fund.

It also says delayed release of funds impacts service delivery within the LGs, particularly concerning development grant-funded activities.

The report points out that the overall problem is that while Uganda has been hailed for outstanding progress in implementing democratic decentralisation in Africa for over three decades, the country has witnessed significant reversals.

“At national level, there is a waning commitment to decentralisation with recentralisation of key local government functions, inadequate financing of local governments and creation of many unviable local government units,” the report points out.

“At the local government level, governance structures are largely ineffective in their representation, legislative, planning, budgeting, accountability and oversight roles. On the other hand, citizens have remained largely disengaged with limited participation. This has led to democratic governance deficits characterized by weak systems, structures and processes,” the report adds.

Positives from the assessment

The report says the local government council scorecard has for over 10 years of its implementation provided evidence that it has had a substantive impact at the international, national, local government, and community levels as well as at the institutional level.

“There have been policy and legal reforms, improved performance of local government leaders, and improved quality of service delivery among others,” it states.

Citizen Scorecard

The report further adds that while citizen engagement had been overlooked and not much effort had been invested by key stakeholders in harnessing the dividends that come with citizens’ engagement, with the introduction of the scorecard, the situation has changed and that with constant engagement through civic engagement locals have been empowered to demand better delivery of public goods and services at local levels.

“This has transformed substantively citizens’ participation in the governance process in these local governments. Increasingly, citizens’ demands started to influence budget processes in local governments. It provides useful governance information that acts as a basis for activating citizen engagement and provides evidence for sustained advocacy at the national level,” the report notes.

Implementation

For the last 11 years of implementation of the Local Government Scorecard Initiative, evidence from cumulative statistics of the scorecard assessment reveals a significant rise in average scores across parameters of the scorecard. 

“Since the introduction of the Acode score card, councillors are under pressure to perform well because they know that they will be graded at the end of the year. No one wants to appear to have done poorly because it will affect their future bid for leadership,” the report says.

The report says before the intervention, most council debates were dominated by personal issues such as councillor allowances as well as petty conflicts between speakers and chairpersons, which bogged down council business.

“The impact of the training and regular assessment of councils and individual councillors about their performance has resulted in the improvement of the legislative roles of councils. Currently, most councillors comprehend their legislative role better and most of them testify to this fact. Most councils have been able to pass quality by-laws and motions to respond to the specific challenges that affect their electorate and districts,” the report says.

CHALLENGES

• The report says funding from the central government to local governments is still inadequate, yet the local governments heavily depend on central government transfers for revenue of over 90 per cent.
• It says failure to release funds within the stipulated time affects timely implementation of planned activities by LGs which sometimes results in unspent balances that are later returned to the consolidated fund.
• The report points out that the overall problem is that while Uganda has been hailed for outstanding progress in implementing democratic decentralisation in Africa for over three decades, the country has witnessed significant reversals.

ASSESSED

North: Agago, Amuru, Apac, Gulu, Lira, Nebbi,  Nwoya

West Nile:  Moyo, Arua,

East: Jinja, Amuria, Bududa, Kaliro, Kamuli, Moroto, Nakapiripirit, Soroti,  Tororo, Mbale

Central: Lwengo, Luwero, Mpigi, Mukono, Wakiso

West: Buliisa, Hoima, Kanungu, Kabarole, Masindi, Mbarara, Ntungamo,  Rukungiri,  Sheema,  Kabale, Kasese

Cities assessed: Arua, Hoima, Gulu, Jinja, Fort Portal, Lira, Mbale, Mbarara,

Municipalities assessed

Moroto, Mukono, Ntungamo, Rukungiri,  Sheema,  Tororo,  Kabale,  Kasese,Wakiso, Apac Kamuli, and Masindi.