Rusoke told MPs that her Ministry was in the final stages of having in place a regulation to facilitate sharing of assets between the new cities and mother districts.
In November last year, the Attorney General issued a circular requiring the mother districts to move their headquarters to alternative areas outside the city boundaries as well as relinquishing all other immovable assets to the new administrative units, to support their growth.
The Minister
of State for Local Government, Victoria Rusoke has said the ministry is finalizing
the regulation that will help resolve the issue of property sharing between
mother districts and newly created cities.
She was on Tuesday appearing before Parliament’s Government Assurance and
Implementation Committee, where she presented a status report on the operationalization
of new cities.
Parliament in April 2020 approved the creation of 15 new cities across the
country. These are Arua, Gulu, Jinja, Mbarara, Fort Portal, Mbale, Masaka, Hoima,
Lira, Soroti and others.
Before the approval of the new cities, the government argued that they will bring
urban services closer to the people, despite its earlier cap on the creation of new
administrative units in the country due to the increasing cost of
administration.
The creation of the new cities also followed protracted clamors by
political leaders and communities, in anticipation of benefits that
strategically come along with the new status of urbanization.
To achieve the city status, the traditional municipalities had to meet a series
of legal prerequisites to qualify for elevation like a population threshold of
300,000 people and an area land size between 50 to 100 square kilometers.
But since their creation, the new urban local governments are yet to settle for
full operationalization over a controversy on how to share assets with the
mother districts.
In November last year, the Attorney General issued a circular requiring the
mother districts to move their headquarters to alternative areas outside the
city boundaries as well as relinquishing all other immovable assets to the new
administrative units, to support their growth.
However, the leaders of traditional districts which gave birth to cities are
reluctant to hand over the assets, and they described the Attorney General’s
letter, as further suppression of their administration and status.
Rusoke told MPs that her Ministry was in the final stages of having in place a
regulation to facilitate sharing of assets between the new cities and mother
districts.
This was after the Committee Vice Chairperson, Joseph Ssewungu asked the
Minister about the controversy on assets.
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the city.”//
Rusoke said
that regulation in the process will solve the property sharing squabbles. She said
that the regulation is in line with Section 175 of the Local Government Act and
that it is currently before the Attorney General.
She told the
committee that her Ministry is expecting a response from the Attorney General’s
office on Thursday.
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“we sent it…
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Ssewungu told the Minister to also go beyond the regulation and have a law in
place that streamlines the operations of cities.
