MPs hail KCCA, point out areas of improvement

Members of Parliament have commended Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) for managing and improving the standard of the city.

The MPs on the Committee on Presidential Affairs however appealed to KCCA to improve work relations between the political and technical wings. They said that with a unified team at the Authority, challenges based on limited funding among others, can easily be checked for the benefit of city residents.

"KCCA does not have challenges but rather problems that have kept accumulating, and if the political wing can coordinate with the technical wing, these issues should be a thing of the past," said Hon. Jesca Ababiku (NRM, Adjumani district).

The KCCA team led by State Minister for Kampala, Hon. Benny Namugwanya and Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago appeared before the Committee to consider the Authority’s budget estimates for the financial year 2019/2020. The meeting was held on Tuesday, 22 January 2019.

The Ag. Executive Director, Andrew Kitaka noted that funds were insufficient to run the activities expected to be executed by the Authority and called on the Committee to consider increasing allocations during the budgeting process on the Floor of Parliament.

"We expected to receive shs477.6 billion to cater for wage and non-wage, the Uganda Road Fund and external financing among other activities, but the budget outturn overview as of 31 December 2018 indicates that we received only shs267.9 billion and paid shs150.5 billion," said Kitaka.

He also highlighted in the report that the drawback on financing of solid waste management by KCCA had inevitably infringed on costs intended for other operations of the Authority.

The Committee had recommended that allocation to solid waste management programme by KCCA be stayed at the actual outturn level of the financial year 2016/2017 of shs12.8 billion, and reallocate shs2.17 billion to other priority areas.

"The Ministry of Finance was unable implement the recommendation... instead reduced recurrent costs under Public Sector Management Budget of KCCA that includes gratuity and pension of civil servants… this has greatly impacted KCCA's ability to meet recurrent costs including settlement to gratuity and pensions," Kitaka said.

Lord Mayor, Lukwago, attributed KCCA's operations on a recurrent budget to lack of funding towards the Authority's transformation agenda, adding that a structural plan to be implemented in the city was in the offing.

Lukwago also highlighted high legal costs as one of the areas to query, given that the money spent on legal matters of KCCA were questionable and needed to be looked into.

He appealed to the MPs to assist KCCA align its budget allocations to meet the mandate to provide a vibrant city for the residents.