The Lira Municipal Council has suspended the chairperson of its finance committee for incompetence.
In an extraordinary meeting, a majority of the Council resolved to suspend Mohammed Ogoola for corruption, incompetence and involvement in a number of underhand business dealings.
The Lira municipal councilors claimed that since he was appointed to office this year, Ogoola has not convened meeting on important financial issues. They pointed out a pending investigation into a case in which the municipality allegedly owes a small publishing company, B&J Printing, 47 million shillings.
The councilors said it was important to immediately investigate how such a small company could continue to thrive without the 47 million shillings and why it reported to debt owed after almost a year. They said a request that Ogoola expedite investigations into the matter went unheeded.
The Lira Municipal Council also quizzed the finance committee chairperson on allegations that each member of the council's executive committee receives 120,000 shillings each week to monitor projects in the municipality. The councilors said there are no projects that require such careful weekly monitoring and were angered that Ogoola failed to justify the disbursement of the monies.
19 of the 32 municipal councilors voted to throw Ogoola out of office. 13 councilors
