The 2026/2027 financial year budget for Hoima City West Division which was laid before the council on Tuesday March 10, 2026, has left some leaders doubting the nature of expected service deliveries due to little planned amount of money planned.
The division laid a total budget of shs638,926,101 million only from the initial amount of over one billion shillings.
The reduction in the budget followed the removal of the property tax collection from the mandate of the Division to the City.
In the initial budget, the property tax was allocated over shs596 million, the amount which is about 48 per cent of the initial budget.
Speaking on the budget, George Kirya, who is the outgoing councillor of Kibingo Ward, expressed his concern over the budget, saying it cannot afford to run better service delivery.
According to him, people expect services rendered to them including water facilities, street lights installations, and road improvements, among others.
“In fact, it is just a fake budget which should not be passed. The budget will not allow you to have better services delivered in the next financial year,” he said.
“There is nobody who develops while going backwards. The budget should be running in billions because people will be expecting different services,” Kirya continued.
The proposed budget is scheduled for approval in April before its implementation.
Nelson Jimex Busiinge, secretary for finance and planning said that the budget for 2026/2027 was reduced from the overall total of close to shs1.3 billion.
Busiinge confirmed that the reduction in the budget followed the removal of the property tax collection from the Division by the main City authorities.
He noted that having such a small figure is an advantage to them since their budgets target local revenue including local service tax, trading licences, stove tax, land fees, occupational tax, market fees and grants from the central government.
Jimex also disclosed that having a bigger budget affected them in the 2025/2026 financial year where they failed to even collect half of the Shs1.9 billion up to date.
“Last year 2025/2026, we had a budget of approximately shs1.9 billion but by the end of December 2025, we had only collected 19 per cent of it and we are just hoping to hit at least 39 per cent by April this year,” he stated.
Busiinge, however, attributed the challenge to people’s poor attitudes towards revenue collections, lack of enforcement by authorities and political campaign interference last year.
Meanwhile, he said that the authorities look forward to effecting community tax education to let them know their roles and responsibilities in paying taxes.
Agness Jolly Kiiza, the deputy speaker who chaired the council assured people of better service delivery despite the smaller budget
Improved road networks, street lights installations, rural electrification and installed water source installations are some of the key services communities should expect despite the short budget, she said.
A councillor for Kihomboza Ward, said it will be easy to collect revenue since it has always been a challenge to cover heavy budgets.
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