The Councilors in Entebbe Division “B” have disagreed with Senior Assistant Town Clerk, Fred Dan Lutaaya accusing him of inflating money meant to renovate the Division Head offices from Shs 90m to Shs. 130m which they say as council they have never passed the said money and have not got an explanation where the extra money came from. Last week the dissatisfied councilors locked the Town Clerk’s office and petitioned the overall Municipal Town Clerk Emmanuel Mugisha Gakyaro to purge his junior Town Clerk Dan Fred Lutaaya. However, Town Clerk Mugisha has confirmed to us that he has received the councilors’ complaints saying his office is managing the issue and requires time to resolve it to a logical conclusion. He added that this week work has resumed at Entebbe Division “B” as his office looks into the standoff that had paralyzed service delivery at the Division offices.
Councilors led by Entebbe Division ‘B’ speaker Mike Kasozi, accuse Senior Assistant Town Clerk Dan Fred Lutaaya of running council as his home and failing to explain to them where he got the additional Shs 50m for the contractor yet council had passed Shs 90m to renovate Entebbe Division “B” Headquarters.
” We are disappointed with our Town Clerk Dan Fred Lutaaya with the way he runs council as if he is running his home. We passed Shs 90m to renovate Entebbe Division ‘B” offices but to our surprise, we are seeing Shs. 140m on paper.
‘Last Sunday, we were shocked to see the contractor beginning to renovate our offices but the groundbreaking ceremony never happened and to aggravate matters a billboard to show the name of the contractor was not placed anywhere at the Division offices yet it’s a requirement before beginning any construction works. The contractor didn’t even inform office bearers to remove office items but started doing the job without any notice to remove office items. This prompted us to lock Lutaaya’s office until he explains to us the inflated figures, “angry speaker Kasozi expressed his annoyance.
“During the last council meeting, we unanimously agreed as councilors that Shs. 90m Discretionary Development Equalization Grant( DDEG) meant to help our people start up income-generating projects be diverted to renovating Entebbe Division “B” offices but surprisingly the Town Clerk allegedly inflated the figure without giving us an explanation where he got the extra money which we saw on paper. Even the executive never informed us about the extra Shs 50m where it came from. The contractor was meant to start renovation last year but never commenced work till last week on Sunday when he began the renovation exercise.
” We would not have issues with the contractor but our major issue is how Shs 130m was allocated to him and till now senior Assistant Town Clerk has never given us an explanation where he got the extra Shs 50m to make it Shs 130m a figure council never passed for the renovation exercise.
“We believe the extra Shs.50m would have done some cleaning on the streets because cleaners had stopped working due to non-payment. The Law enforcement officers also demand council their allowances for almost a year. Even the councilors demand council alot of money for their sitting allowances and even my office(office of the speaker) demands council Shs. 20m, ” speaker Kasozi expressed concern.
” The last time got our sitting allowances was in December last year but since then we have not received anything. Despite us not being given our allowances, our LC3 chairperson Richard Sekyondo is facilitated and recently he was facilitated Shs 10m for a trip to Japan.
” All that said, we need two weeks to investigate the contractor but though we disagree with him, we have been told that if we fail him, council might pay a heavy penalty to him for breach of contract, ” Speaker Kasozi expressed fear.
Town Clerk Lutaaya Apologizes To The General Public.
In his apology, the Senior Assistant Town Clerk, Dan Fred Lutaaya said:
” On behalf of the technical team, we apologize for the breakdown in service delivery for close to a week because of the mismatch between the technical team and councilors (policymakers) regarding the major renovation exercise taking place at our Division ‘B’ Head offices. Truly the breakdown had a big effect on service delivery but the good news is that the situation has returned to normal and we managed to sort out a number of issues.
” Currently we are transforming our infrastructure at Division Head offices where we sit and therefore, it’s possible political temperatures are likely to rise. We apologize to the tolerant citizens for enduring that tough period and we believe that won’t happen again, “Town Clerk Lutaaya made his apology.
” We shall continue serving our citizens diligently and we are also duty-bound to educate, train, and induct our politicians to ensure such actions don’t happen again. We need to work harmoniously with our policymakers for effective service delivery.
” We have contracted Zevilio technical services to renovate our division head offices and the contract is being supported by the Discretionary Development Equalization Grant (DDEG) a central government discretionary grant sent to local governments. In our work plan we agreed that we need a face-lift at our Head offices both inside and outside and to ensure each officer has an office room because right now we operate in an open room with no privacy.
Therefore, we need to have full offices and to modernize our finance and Administration block in addition to adding value to my office as the Senior Assistant Town Clerk.
” The whole contract will cost Shs.130m and the renovation exercise will last for a period of 6 months. We are thinking of how best the whole renovation exercise would go on while we serve our people and in case we find a relocation opportunity within the vicinity we shall direct our people accordingly. Our second office block has alot of work to do including renovation and elevating it and this is likely to take alot of time for the contractor. It’s on this basis that we need to give the contractor enough time to perfect his work. We also need to protect our clients who will be coming to our Division offices to get payment instructions and other services and hence we might advise them on issues of payment settlement within these 5 months without going through debris which may hurt them.
” We trust Zevilio technical services and a billboard is going to be put up immediately for everyone to know the official contractor,”TownClerk Lutaaya submitted.
In other news concerning environmental conservation, Senior Assistant Town Clerk Dan Fred Lutaaya revealed that:
” Every February, Council engages in tree planting exercise, and this time round we are going to plant trees along our main roads and the majority of the trees we intend to plant are fruit trees. We have got courtesy of the National Forestry Authority (NFA) and UPDF in honor of Tarehesita celebrations and we show our celebrations through greening in regard to climate change mitigation.
” Last year, we planted close to 4000 trees both in Kigungu and Kiwafu zones, and out of these 2500 trees managed to survive very well and are growing well. But this year, we have been given 2000 trees, and the majority of them are fruit trees and plan to plant them along the streets, some in schools and households. However, we are very keen to give households because some of them are in perimeter walls and owners don’t allow children to access their wild dogs inside there. So, we prefer planting fruit trees in communally accessible points so that in future when you find a fruit you can be able to access it.
” Therefore, when you see us not giving households don’t be surprised because we are targeting communities to benefit and we are preferring access points for the community to access the planted fruit trees,” Town Clerk Lutaaya explained.
