Councilors of Lira Municipal council On Tuesday stormed out of the council meeting budget protesting the decision to pass shillings 600 million on a vote of account. A vote on account is money that is allocated by the council for use before the main budget is approved. It all started minutes Alex Ogwal Etwop; the municipality finance presented the new financial year budget estimates amounting to shillings 6.
He requested the councilors to pass 25 percent of the total budget amounting to about Shs1.7B as vote on account, a move which the councilors rejected. The council was thrown into more confusion when the Municipal speaker Geoffrey Omara over ruled the councilors and passed 600 million shillings on the vote on account. As a result more than half of the councilors stormed out of the council protesting the decision.
Geoffrey Opio Omolo, the councilor representing Bazaar ward in Central Divison, said that the decision to pass the money was null and void. Omolo accused the speaker of breaching the financial act regulations that require that a vote on account must not be less or exceed 25 percent of the entire budget. Fred Minyang, councilor representing Railway division says they refused to approve the shillings 1.7 billion because the money would end up in the pockets of a few individuals in the municipality.
Minyang argued that instead of passing the 25 percent vote on account, they should approve the entire budget to avoid wasteful use of resources. Another, councilor, Sam Akaa, said that the money requested on the vote on account was just too much. Akaa said that he suspects some foul play by some technical officers and greedy politicians to continue defrauding tax payer’s money.
He also rubbished claims that the money would be used to pay salaries of the municipality civil servants, saying their salaries are paid by the Central government. Paul Omoko, the town clerk Lira Municipality said that the money would be used to meet expenditures including paying the salaries of the civil servants within the first one month as they wait for the approval of the main budget. Omoko said civil servants in the municipality are ready to lay down their tools until the main budget is approved if the councilors insist on blocking the money requested for.
