MMDAs Blowing Disability Fund

The Disability Fund meant for People Living with Disabilities (PLWDs) has been mismanaged and poorly disbursed by the various District Assemblies, the Parliamentary Select Committee on Local Government and Rural Development has captured in a report.

The Report further revealed that hitherto, signatories to the accounts were officials of the various Assemblies, being the Coordinating Director and the Finance Officer; and as a result, offered the tendencies for them to use monies for the funds for different purposes.

It further revealed that officials of the Assemblies used the monies to fund other recurrent expenditures.

The Committee however expressed satisfaction that the practice has stopped under the current administration, and that the management of the Disability Fund had greatly improved.

On matters of transparency, the Committee noted that there was still an unfortunate lack of transparency on the part of the Assemblies in the management of the fund.

It further noted that there was lack of collaboration between the Assemblies and the Disability Committee.

It noted also that in some MMDAs, important information relating to transfers from the District Assemblies Common Fund to the Disability Fund, bank statements and outstanding amounts were not made available to Members of the Committee.

The Committee undertook a monitoring visit to selected Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in nine (9) out of ten (10) Regions in the country from Wednesday 31st January 31, to Wednesday February 7 in pursuant to Order 181and 192(2) of the Standing Orders of Parliament.

The Committee also found out that Agreements reached with some outsourced firms contracted by the Assemblies to undertake one job or the other lacked performance bonds or any form of guarantee prior to their engagements, hence the execution of substandard works sometimes by outsourced firms.

Similarly, it was revealed that officials who are mandated to monitor the performance of outsourced firms had themselves not seen those agreements and commitments to enable them do effective monitoring.

The MMDAs per the law are expected to use between 20 and 30 percent of their Internally Generated Funds (IGF) on Capital Expenditure (Projects).

However, the opposite has been the practice, with the Assemblies using 100 percent of their IGF on recurrent expenditures.

The Committee found this unacceptable and unfair to the Ratepayers in the Municipalities and requested the Assemblies to at least utilize 20 percent of the amounts generated for capital projects.

Another challenge identified by the Committee was the lack of complete and accurate database of ratable units and persons.