Mukono Mayor accuses Town Clerks’ office of frustrating his Mandate

Mukono, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Mukono Municipality Mayor Erisa Mukasa Nkoyoyo says that he has been unable to exercise his mayoral mandate since he took office in 2021.

The Mayor is mandated to oversee the general administration and performance of civil servants, as well as monitor the provision of government services and the implementation of projects in the municipality.

But Nkoyoyo says that his role has been hijacked by the Office of the Town Clerk. The Office, he says, has been establishing projects without his knowledge yet he has never received reports about the implementation of activities and audits for review.

URN has established that during the municipal executive meetings, the clerks submit lists of activities being implemented without details of execution. Nkoyoyo says this, has resulted in the awarding of contracts to unqualified service providers, many of which are now being contested.

The highly contested contracts include the management of street parking which was awarded to Joseneous Investment Limited and contracts awarded to De Waste to manage garbage in Goma division, Bins Kampala Limited to manage waste in the Central Division and Namakya Enterprises Limited to manage its landfill at Katikoro.

The other projects under implementation include the maintenance of roads and the construction of the municipal headquarters. But, despite ongoing works, the municipal council says that it does not have knowledge of how the contracts were awarded.

“I just see engineers turning up to maintain roads and others coming up to construct the municipal headquarters, but I don’t know exactly what they are going to do. Remember none of the technical staff goes out to supervise such work. If my team doesn’t go out to supervise, my area will continue to have shoddy work, but we don’t have the basis to supervise,” Nkoyoyo notes.

Vincent Lubwama, one of the area councilors says it is disrespectful for the technical wing to block the Mayor’s office from accessing information. He suspects that behind all the silence, could be a cloud of corruption and dirty deals.

The new Town Clerk Francis Byabagambi notes that the mayor is entitled to all information regarding the administration of the municipality and says he would review the matter soon to rectify all anomalies.

Byabagambi, who is about three weeks old in the office replaced Godfrey Kisekka who was transferred to Gulu. At the time of his departure, the council had set up a seven-member committee to investigate him together with his deputy, Luboyera Majerani over unpaid hotel bills of about 60 million Shillings resulting from the purported committee sittings.

Preliminary investigations indicated that Alvers Hotel along Katosi road complained about officials who consumed alcohol and food and left the place without settling the bills. They asked the hotel to demand payment from the municipal finance department as money that was spent on committee sittings.

Simon Ogwal Kajura, the Director of Anti-corruption at the Inspectorate of Government says that his team is investigating corruption tendencies in the procurement and award of contracts at the municipality.

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URN