Districts Selling Govt Pickups for Shs1.5m, Motorcycles for Shs20,000 – Nambooze

Betty Nambooze, Chairperson of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee

Parliament has learnt of district leaders undervaluing public assets, with pickups driven for only three years sold at Shs1.5 million, government motorcycles auctioned at Shs20,000, land sold at Shs43 million, while in Luwero a Teachers Training College was valued at Shs20 million.

The revelation was made by Betty Nambooze, Chairperson of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), during a courtesy visit by the Uganda Local Government Association (ULGA) to Speaker Jacob Oboth on September 29, 2026.

“The districts are losing all their assets and becoming poorer by day. First of all, they start by undervaluing their own assets. Last time I was in Luwero where a whole Busubizi TTC was valued at Shs20 million, or like yesterday I was in Mukono and the district had put the value of all its land at Shs43 million. You find them selling off motorcycles at Shs20,000, Shs50,000. In Uganda, a pickup bought about 2-3 years ago is now being sold at Shs1.5 million. So, they have a lot of problems,” Nambooze said.

Asked by Speaker Oboth who buys these items, Nambooze said they are mostly bought by district leaders, including councillors and district chairpersons.

“So, it is like a connivance at that district. I didn’t want to embarrass them before you, but because I am the ombudsman of this, that is the report I wanted to give you,” she said.

Nambooze also called for revival of District Public Accounts Committees (DPACs) through provision of funds to facilitate their work and for Parliament to spearhead capacity building to enable them handle Auditor General reports for sub-counties.

She argued that the current practice of sending all audit reports to Parliament has created a backlog of 5,000 reports yet to be scrutinized.

“All the district public accounts committees collapsed. They are supposed to bring, through the Minister of Local Government, a report here annually, but over a decade, we have not been receiving those reports. This puts a heavy load on the national PAC. We now have a backlog of over 5,000 reports. I have to review Auditor General reports up to sub-counties, which would have been handled by the DPACs,” she said.

Speaker Oboth wondered why a recommendation in Parliament’s Rules of Procedure to have sub-county and school audit reports handled at district level has not been implemented, leaving Parliament to focus on higher units like municipalities and districts to reduce the backlog.

“We made a recommendation to the House and the House adopted that the Local Government Act should be amended to make sure that sub-counties which get about Shs120 million, secondary and primary schools’ accountability doesn’t come up to Parliament. She has close to 6,000 reports. You will never clear them, even if I know she is very hardworking. What are these DPACs doing? We thought real technical people should be appointed at that level,” Oboth said.

The Speaker warned LCV chairpersons against appointing campaign managers to critical district positions like District Accountability Committees unless they have the requisite knowledge and capacity. This was in response to Nambooze’s concern that even functional DPACs suffer limited capacity.

“Unfortunately, when these good chairmen go out to appoint the public accounts committees, they end up appointing friends, relatives, campaign managers and then the whole concept of accountability is lost. I would like to request that maybe Parliament could help the districts to reorient the DPACs for a start. And they are not funded. We have a proposal saying at least Shs20 million per year be for the operation of the DPACs so that they can handle some of these reports,” Nambooze said.

Oboth acknowledged the need for Parliament to lead training of local governments, saying this mandate lies with Parliament.

“Where there have been shortcomings is purely because we have not been doing that part. So, in the next budgeting process, which starts a few days from now, this concept must be captured. We can facilitate our local government PACs at regional level to summon all local governments and specific people to go through training and interaction,” he said.

However, Oboth expressed concern over districts returning unspent funds to the Consolidated Fund due to failure by District Service Commissions to recruit staff, saying this has led to poor service delivery while many qualified Ugandans remain unemployed.

“Nothing hurts me as a Member of Parliament to hear in my district, these huge billions have been taken back, and all the money being taken back to central government is about recruitment. Tororo wrote to me on behalf of all other local governments, because I know that’s what works. Public Service says you can’t recruit until you get clearance. Why?” he said.

“These local governments have autonomy to recruit, they have district service commissions. But before you recruit, you need a certificate of clearance from Public Service and that is not enough, you also need to get from Finance. So, by the time you get all these clearances, the financial year has ended. And in the same Uganda, there is a high number of youth and graduates who are not employed. So, you wonder what are we doing?” Oboth added.

One local leader told the Speaker that districts are blamed for not utilising funds yet the challenge comes from the Ministry of Finance which releases funds in the last quarter, yet spending requires numerous approvals.

Oboth replied: “This must stop. The release of money for recruitment should be put in the first quarter so that clearance must all be in the first quarter, so that you are free to recruit. When you bring it in the fourth quarter, between April, May, June and by 15th June the money has to be back. So when do they recruit? Who is fooling who?”

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *