Six districts on the spot over road funds

Six district local governments are on the spot over the implementation of a road maintenance grant for the financial year 2023/24.

The local governments are of the districts of Dokolo, Katakwi, Ngora, Mbale, Mbarara city and Kumi Municipal Council.

“However, my interactions with the accounting officers of the cities and municipalities revealed that they did not have independent road committees due to lack of clarity in the law and guidelines,” the Auditor General, Edward Akol, noted in his latest report to Parliament.

In the annual report for the audit year that ended December 31, 2024, Akol also said that work plans for these local governments were not approved by the respective district roads committees (DRCs).

In a bid to reduce the roads rehabilitation backlog, the Government decided in February 2023 to allocate a road rehabilitation development grant of one billion shillings to each of the 176 local governments comprising 135 districts, 10 cities and 31 municipal councils in the financial year 2023/24.

The Ministry of Works and Transport (MoWT) issued the “Works and Transport Rehabilitation Grant Implementation Guidelines for FY 2023/24” in May 2023.

Furthermore, on July 27, 2023, Parliament passed a resolution to guide the implementation of the grant.

During the period under review, 176 local governments received a sum of shillings 176 billion in the financial year.

“I designed audit procedures to assess whether the utilisation of the road maintenance grant was undertaken in accordance with the parliamentary resolution and the road rehabilitation guidelines issued by MoWT,” Akol said.

He noted the implementation of the grant was affected by conflicting guidelines issued by the MoWT and the resolution of Parliament.

He also noted that in May 2023, the MoWT guided that 85% of the grant should be allocated for rehabilitation works and 15% for other operational expenses, which the local governments and ministry of finance had considered during planning and budgeting.

He also reported that on July 27, 2023, Parliament resolved that 95% of the grant funds should be used for maintenance works and operational expenses of the grant should not exceed 5% (sh50m), and strictly used for repair and maintenance of road equipment.

Akol further noted that there were notable delays in the submission of the grant work plans to Uganda Road Fund/MoWT by 81 LGs ranging from three days to one year.