Kapelebyong District Local Government has set priorities for improving road infrastructure and water coverage in the next financial year.
The plans are contained in the draft budget for the next
financial year that was presented during the budget conference held at
the district headquarters on Monday. The district aims at extending access to hard-to-reach areas that have been affected by floods over the years.
According to the Kapelebyong LCV Chairperson, Francis
Akorikin, access to sub-counties in the district has been at 40 percent because
of limited access to road equipment to open and maintain roads in the district.
Kapelebyong doesn’t have any road equipment to help in opening and maintaining roads in the districts.
Akorikin said that the district plans to
enable access to all sub-counties and villages by at least 75 percent by the
end of the next financial year.
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Simon Emeru, the Kapelebyong Acting Chief Finance Officer
says that the allocation of one billion shillings from the central government
on roads has enabled the district to extend the road network by at least 60
kilometers in the past financial year.
Emeru notes that the water coverage has also been able to
increase to 81 percent from 77 percent although the emphasis has been drawn on
providing piped water to mushrooming urban centers in the district.
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Welthunger Hilfe, a partner working on water and sanitation
has planned to drill more boreholes and improve on health and sanitation of
communities and schools in the sub-counties of Akoromit, Alito, Obalanga, and
Okungur.
Peter Elumu, the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer at Welthunger Hilfe
says that their intervention was informed by the high disease burden resulting from
the absence of clean water and sanitation in the district.
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Like all other districts in the country, a big percentage
of Kapelebyong’s annual budget estimates is spent on wages while development
projects have less than half of the budget.
The district has allocated more
than nine billion Shillings of the UGX 16.2 billion budget estimates for the next financial
year to wages.
The district has also set priorities in increasing household
incomes, improving livelihoods, and social service delivery through the completion
and upgrade of school and health facilities.
Some of the ongoing projects include the construction of Alito
Seed Secondary School, Akoromit Seed Secondary School, Akoromit HC111, and the upgrade
of Aeket and Alito HCIIs to HCIIIs.
Edward Eninu
Freelancer