Bukedea, Adjumani Top List of Best Performing Districts

By Hanning Mbabazi

Kampala: According to the 2018/2019 Local Government Performance Assessment report released in Kampala by the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) on 26^th June, Bukedea and Adjumani districts topped the list of best performing districts, with 82 per cent, closely followed by Kumi at 81 per cent, while Butambala, Buikwe districts and Apac Municipal Council all tallied at 80 per cent, topping the list of best District performers.

The assessment was done from September to October 2018, and covered 144 of the 162 districts and municipalities that were operational in the 2017/2018 financial year however, six districts that started operations on July 1, 2019, were not assessed together with municipalities implementing the Uganda Support to Municipal Infrastructure Development (USMID) programmes. Officials said the municipalities are assessed under a different programme.

At the tail end, Rubanda District and Kotido Municipality tallied at a paltry 36 per cent, followed by Buliisa District as third worst performing district, scoring 39 per cent.
Masindi Municipality, the winners in last year’s assessment, dropped to 37th position, while last year’s runner-up, Butambala, moved to 4th position.
Ibanda Municipality that came 3rd last year, dropped to 53rd, while Kyegegwa District was relegated from 4th to 99th position.

Mr Gonzaga Mayanja, an assistant commissioner in OPM, who presented the report, said they are working with the ministries of Health and Education to roll out the assessment to specific service delivery entities that get finances directly from the Consolidated Fund
“Every mark you get has an implication on the allocation of resources, if you perform better, you get slightly higher resources, if you perform poorly, you get a decline in the resources,” Said Mr Mayanja.

Ms Karooro asked the Ministry of Local Government and other line ministries to closely work with the districts to ensure resources are provided and the local governments are able to perform.
“The focus is to ensure that the resources transferred to the districts are efficiently used and accounted for. I encourage the relevant MDAs [ministries, departments and agencies] to extend support to the local governments. The Local Government ministry should support the districts that are not performing well through performance improvement programmes so that they improve on service delivery,” she said.

The stellar performance earned Adjumani District an additional Shs33m allocation by the central government for health service delivery, taking the total for this coming year to Shs73m.