National
UGANDA: STATE HOUSE ANTI-CORRUPTION UNIT TO INVESTIGATE NWOYA DISTRICT LOCAL GOVERNMENT
The Minister was responding to the complaint lodged by the area member of Parliament for Nwoya County Hon. Simon Oyet
By Simon Wokorach
NWOYA-UGANDA: Col. Okello Sam Engola, the State Minister for Defense has directed the State House anti-corruption body to investigate Nowya District Local Government over alleged abuse of public funds.
The Minister was responding to the complaint lodged by the area member of Parliament for Nwoya County Hon. Simon Oyet.
The Minister and Senior Officers in the UPDF were in Acholi Sub region a week ago to commission to schools and health centers rehabilitated during the tare-sita commemoration of 2019.
The schools rehabilitated include St. Kizito Aywe Primary School in Gulu and Omer Primary school in Amuru District while the two health centers of Koch Goma Health Center III in Nwoya District and Laneno-Ber Health Center II in Omoro District at cost of 177 million Uganda Shillings.
Addressing the gathering at Koch Goma Health Center III, Oyet demanded the Minister to send in a team of anti-corruption unit from State House to investigate the District.
Oyet allegesthat the service delivery in the District is extremely poor despite of a huge public fund allocated to the District from the central Government.
He identified the most affected sectors as road and engineering, production and health department.
“Hon. Minister, our District needs external audit. There is a lot of corruption taking place in all sectors, we need state house anti-corruption unit here to hold them accountable” Oyet alleges.
Okello Patrick Oryema, the District chairman Nwoya District Local Government has distanced self from the allegations.
Oryema told the Minister that the state of poor service delivery in the District especially on health department is due to the mistake the government made in 2014 during the national census.
“Many people in the remote places in the District were not counted, we are a population of 198, 0000people as of 2016 door to door counting by the village health team” Oryema in statement.
He says following the increasing population in the District, services in the health centers has always been a problem adding that there is a serious drug shortage in all the health centers.
“It is true thee is too much complaints from the communities of not being given drugs in the health facilities but I don’t think whether there is need to bring anti-corruption body here” Oryema responded.
However, in response, the Minister has assured the District of directing the anti- corruption unit from state house to commence investigations on the allegations.
“I will write to the state house to come and direct the team to come here but it is but to abuse the public funds, what about the people” the Minister asked.
He revealed that investigations will not only end in Nwoya District but the entire District from Northern Uganda where he had moved and encountered challenges in the health sector.
“We shall investigate all the Districts in this region including Oyam where I come from, there is lot of allegations of corruption in local governments” Minister Okello Engola.
The Minister further blames the rising cases diseases in the community especially malaria on weaknesses of the District health team to monitor and sensitize the public.
“We have so many of the diseases which can be prevented but the health inspection team are not reaching out to the public to create them awareness on prevention” He further explains.
He says the purpose of health ministry and other line ministries are to concentrate on prevention of diseases adding that the government is spending much money on treating diseases which are preventable when the communities are sensitized about.
