Mbale city operating without approved budget

Mbale, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Mbale city is operating without an approved budget, URN has learnt. This came to the fore last week in a meeting between Mbale City Council authorities and Peter Ogwang, the State Minister for Economic monitoring in the office of the President.

During the meeting, Ogwang raised concern over the dwindling local revenue collections in the city. He asked the authorities how much money was in this financial year budget and if the city had a budget. However, neither the city clerk nor the mayor replied to the minister.

Mbale city has an estimated budget of over Shillings 50 billion. Shillings 4.7billion is expected from local revenue collections. The budget estimates were laid before the council for discussion and approval in vain.

The Deputy Speaker of Mbale city, Abdallah Magambo told the minister that the council has never approved the budget estimates. He explained that the council was not fully constituted when the estimates were laid before the council.

Kasim Namugali, the Mbale city mayor explained that the budget was never formally approved because of the Covid-19 pandemic and lack of money to pay the councillors. He said that the budget committee deliberated on the budget and adopted pending approval by the full council.

While the deputy speaker and the mayor said the budget was not approved, the Mbale city clerk David Kyansanku told Uganda Radio Network that the budget was approved and signed by the city speaker.

David Wetaka, the President of Mbale City Development Forum, says that as members of a forum which represents the people of Mbale city, they have never participated in any budget conference where issues affecting people are raised.

He said that he has gathered information from the councillors that the budget estimates were never approved.

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URN