According to the audit report of the Auditor General for the Financial Year 2023/24, Kitgum Municipality scored only 30 percent in solid waste management in the implementation of the Uganda Municipal Support to Infrastructural Development Additional Financing (USMID-AF).
Garbage collected at Gulu Main Market in Gulu City.
Kitgum Municipality has been
ranked among the worst-performing administrative units in the country in the
collection and disposal of solid waste in the last three years.
According to the audit report of the Auditor General for the Financial Year 2023/24, Kitgum Municipality scored only
30 percent in solid waste management in the implementation of the Uganda Municipal
Support to Infrastructural Development Additional Financing (USMID-AF).
Kitgum is among the selected
Municipalities and cities benefitting from funding for the implementation of the USMID-AF
programme that not only focuses on infrastructural development but improved
collection of urban liquid and solid waste.
Other cities are Fort Portal and
Soroti which were ranked as best performing cities having collected and
disposed of 86 percent of the garbage collected in their respective areas followed
by Kamuli Municipality which scored 79 percent.
Other worst-performing administrative
units included Lira City and Tororo Municipality which scored 10 and 28 percent
respectively.
The report indicated that
quantities of solid waste generated and disposed of by the participating cities
remain very low compared to the volumes generated. For instance, in the three years between 2021/22 to 2023/24, only 37 percent of the total 4,03,740 tons
of solid waste generated were disposed of.
Specifically, the Cities
collected and disposed of 1.1 million tonnes (34.4 percent) of the planned 3.2
million tonnes of waste generated, while the Municipalities collected and
disposed of only 399,897 tonnes (50 percent) of the generated 812,462 tonnes
of solid waste.
Edward Akol, the Auditor General
in his audit report noted that the challenges with solid waste management arose since
the Ministry of Lands Housing and Urban Development (MoLHUD) had not developed
a national solid waste management policy.
He said the Ministry had also not
implemented plans for resilient infrastructure and waste recycling which hampers
solid waste Management coordinating efforts in the Cities and Municipalities.
“I advised the Accounting Officer
of MoLHUD to expedite the development of the policy to ensure a comprehensive
approach to solid waste management in the Cities and Municipalities to improve
and secure environmental resilience and public health,” he recommended.
Kitgum Municipality Mayor Richard
Okwera Ojara didn’t comment on the matter citing that he hadn’t read the Auditor
general’s report yet.
Alexis Abonga, the Acting Kitgum Municipal
Engineer however acknowledged the challenges they faced in disposing of garbage
in the last financial year and attributed it to lack of equipment.
Abonga noted that while the
Municipal council has a landfill measuring about six acres in Piny Munu in Labongo
Akwang Sub-county, access to the area had been nearly impossible for the past
year.
“We had challenges in solid waste
management last year relating to challenges of dumping site. At some point in
time, our landfill was not accessible, and we needed some equipment to go and
reorganize it,” he told URN in an interview Tuesday.
According to Abonga, the
Municipal council leadership on Tuesday had a lengthy engagement on resolving
the garbage crisis effective this February.
USMID-AF was rolled out in the
financial year 2018/19 after the government secured an additional five-year financing
facility of USD 360 million from the International Development Association
(IDA/World Bank). A total of 22 municipalities and cities are participating in
the project.
However, in the recent audit report,
conducted on 91 infrastructure projects with a total cost of 711.6 billion
shillings consisting of roads and building projects, the auditor general found
glaring challenges in the projects' implementation.
For instance, there was an overpayment of 1.65 billion shillings on USMID-funded projects and 95.96 million shillings
on non-USMID-funded projects following measurements undertaken on some of the
executed works that showed inconsistencies in some quantities certified.
The report also established that the Municipalities
of Lugazi and Busia made payments above certified amounts totalling 134.2
million shillings on the USMID-funded projects while Fort Portal City made a payment
above the certified amount totalling 7.5 million shillings on one of its
non-USMID funded projects.
Concern was also raised by the
auditor general on seven USMID-funded projects implemented in the
Municipalities/Cities of Hoima, Kasese, Lira, Kitgum and Lugazi, where payments totalling
2.36 billion shillings were made without necessary supporting documents.
“This lack of documentation increases
the risk of overpayments and payments for unexecuted activities,” the Auditor
General highlighted in the report.
In his recommendation, Akol
tasked the respective accounting officers to ensure that the overpayments and
payments made above the certified amounts were recovered. He also tasked the accounting
officers to investigate the basis on which payments without supporting
documents were made and, if found unsatisfactory, ensure the necessary
recoveries were made.
A total of 36 USMID-funded
projects have been implemented since the financial year 2021/22 and 44
non-USMID projects consisting of two non-USMID projects from each local
government-financed from Uganda Road Fund (URF), School Facilities Grants
(SFG), Discretionary Development Equalisation Grant (DDEG) were implemented in
the FY 2023/24.
Bureau Chief, West Acholi