Mr George Okello Ayo - Lira City East Div. Mayor-elect. Photo by Te-ceng.
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Last Updated on: 3rd July 2021, 07:30 am
Lira City East Div. changes administrative units as new fiscal year starts
By Christine Awor
Lira – 2, July 2021: The 1, July 2021 marks the beginning of the financial year 2021/2022 and the start of the implementation of the 44.7 trillion national budget recently read by Hon. Amos Lugolobi, the state minister for finance and economic planning.
The 44.7trillion budget is expected to draw its funding from both old and new taxes.
On 28, April, 2020, Parliament voted for the creation of 15 new cities in the country.
The cities approved, created and now functional are Jinja, Mbarara, Fort Portal, Masaka, Mbale, Arua, Gulu, Hoima, Lira, Entebbe and Soroti.
Others to start next include Moroto, Nakasongola, Kabale and Wakiso.
Lira being one of the newly created cities, kicked off her operations late last year.
Vincent Obong Eyit, MP Lira City West Division has urged the leaders of Lira City West as the financial year kicks in to start working towards fulfilling their manifestos so that they can join hands towards developing the City together.
Obong Eyit cautioned everyone to follow the “Presidential directives willingly” including standard operating procedures (SOPs) to combat the spread of coronavirus.
“Coronavirus is a very simple virus once you wash hands, sanitize and social distance among others,” he says.
He appealed to parents to always talk to children despite the fact that schools are still put to halt and to the farmers, he urged them not to give up on agriculture because it is the backbone of Uganda, hence it will boost the development of Lira City.
Meanwhile, Lira City East Division mayor, George Okello Ayoo says as a division, they have started their new financial year fairly because they are having “satellite offices” so that all staffs are accommodated.
“Effective today, headquarter for finance and administration shifted from Central division to railway division, new administrative headquarter from Central division to Railway division, production unit to Ngeta, health and community based services to remain in Central division then education and administration to remain in Railways.”
He says on 30, 06 2021, the budget for this financial year for Lira City East was read by Lira City Council and a sum of 2.9 billion shilling was allocated to them, and the only gap in the budget he says is that there was no fund allocated to roads yet this is a very vital issue.
Okello Ayoo further said the budget allocated to Lira City West Division is too little to run all the administrative units. Ayoo is urging the government to give them a startup fund since Lira City is still new.
On the other hand, looking at one of the newly created sub-counties which is Adwir, Padi Francis Ogwang Abwang, the chairperson LCIII said infrastructure is the biggest challenge to them.
Abwang asked the government to prioritize it to ease the operation of other services underway.
“Health too should be given an upper hand because residents need to be in perfect health and also the new financial year we have not been given indicative planning figure to show the operation limits.”
He adds that the government is still quiet on them, and they have not yet received official technical officers including community development officers which is crippling operations.
