The Minister for Local Government Raphael Magyezi has asked the Permanent Secretary/Secretary to the Treasury Ramathan Ggoobi to reconsider his action of sacking 110 Accounting Officers.
Mr Magyezi told journalists on Friday that there are a lot of things Mr Ggoobi did not consider while taking that strong decision. He noted that if the Permanent Secretary refuses to reconsider his decision, it may affect many local government tasks which were supposed to be finished by the sacked accounting officers.
“I don’t agree with him in such action because he would have first found out what really happened because some of the failures were substantial and unavoidable like in Buhweju, the accounting officer did his work and all the technical people prepared the budget and it was ready but on the day of passing it, the councillors were not there because they had an issue with their Speaker, do you now sack the accounting officer?” he asked.
“When you say almost all the accounting officers of the local government have been sacked, it’s very serious and dangerous. Therefore we are in process of engaging the ministers of Finance to see this action is revised. I’m assuring the local government accounting officers to take heart, we are going to work on it.”
According to the letter dated 7th July 2022, Ggoobi said that to enable smooth implementation of the Budget for FY2022/23, he appointed a number of persons as Accounting Officers for respective Local Governments in accordance with Section 11 (2) (g) of the PFM.
However, while all Central Government Votes have submitted their approved Budgets Estimates, Work plans, Procurement plans and Performance Contracts for FY 2022/23 and these have already been uploaded on the IFMS, only 66 Local Governments have acceptably submitted their budget proposals despite the repetitive reminders.
“As such this ministry cannot issue Quarter one Expenditure Limits for FY2022/23 and this is delaying commencement of the Budget Execution and shall delay service delivery including payment of Salaries. Given the breach of the statutory deadlines for effective commencement of the Budget for FY2022/23 for Local Government Votes, I’m proceeding with the cancellation of the appointment of all Non-Compliant Local Government Accounting Officers for FY2022/23; and request you to nominate new persons for appointment as Local Government Votes……” reads the letter.
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