By Michael Atwakiire
Sheema: Sheema municipality town clerk Justine Barekye is in deep trouble after the municipality divisional chairmen vowed never to take a single coin to the municipality coffers again until she produces accountability for Shs137M .
The angry chairmen led by Kagango Div. Chairman Benson Ahimbisiibwe accuse the Town clerk Justine Barekye and her treasurer for ‘playing ping pong’ on the district money and later play on their minds yet they know Sheema is different when it comes to accountability issues. (https://chipedge.com/)
“We received Shs137M from the ministry of finance , out of which we were supposed to get 50% which is Shs68M, but she gave us approximately Shs33M. No one knows the whereabouts of the remaining Shs35M. We are also supposed to get 30% from the 50% which remains at the municipality,” he argued.
He added, “We last got it in June 2019 and when we asked the town clerk, she told us that the new government system which was recently introduced has a problem and said the municipality has never received any single coin from the ministry of finance. But we didn’t believe that. When matters worsened and our casual labourers started demonstrating over late salary, we went to the ministry of finance for clarification where we found that in the first quarter, Sheema municipality received Shs33,077,972 , then later a supplementary budget of Shs408,311,680 and then Shs82,693,993 which totals to Shs137,405,500 that had been cleared by the ministry”.
Ahimnisiibwe said they immediately wrote to Police asking for permission to allow them demonstrate against the town clerk after getting the above information from the ministry but police refused to grant them permission and advised them to sit with the mayor and town clerk to iron out matters. It was after exerting pressure on her that she deposited Shs33M on the accounts,he said.
The chairmen now accuse her among others for issuing fake accounts documents which show that she deposited money on district accounts whereas not.
“She writes to us informing us that she deposited money on the division accounts but you can’t find there anything. We have agreed not to deposit tax money on the municipality account again until top government officials intervene,” they said.
However, when contacted about the matter, Barekye insisted that she deposited all the money on all division accounts in early December 2019 and requested the Divisional chairmen not to mix her in their politics.
However, Ahimbisibwe and other Divisional chairmen said the money they received in early December was supposed to be received in September. Watch the space….
