Operationalizing New Local Administrative Units will be Phased – Bahati

Members of Parliament (MPs) sitting on the Local Government committee have lashed at government for using Parliament to create administrative units which they are not ready to fund.

In the financial year 2017/18, Parliament passed a motion for creation of 204 and 198 sub-counties whose funding requires over Shs 151bn for them to start operating.

There other associated costs for public administration which include; Police posts, health and education facilities in line with current government policy.

Appearing before this committee on Thursday, the Minister of State for Finance, David Bahati told legislators that the matter was discussed in Cabinet and it was agreed to be deferred.

Bahati said that government instead prioritized salary enhancement because of the implications of the service delivery.

He noted that the operationalization of the new administrative units can be done in a phased manner.

“The creation of councils, sub-counties and districts which were already created are going to happen. The plan we have is to have them in a phased manner because of resources involved and we have a resource constraints,” Bahati said.

However, his explanation was not received well by MPs including Theodore Ssekikubo, Suzan Amero, Rapheal Magyezi among others who questioned why government would let parliament approve the creation of those many administrative units only for this not to be implemented.

The legislators said that this pushes the electorate to continue living in anxiety.

“Why did you present all these requirements before Parliament for approval yet you had no resources to have them in place? This is seriously lying to Parliament, they misled us and the general public,” Ssekikubo commented.

The committee has kicked off consultations on creation of regional tier government following a motion that was tabled before Parliament by Buliisa County MP Stephen Birahwa Mukitale.

Government noted that it is still in consultations with different stakeholders over this motion hence much has to be discussed before it gives its stand on this motion.