The shadow minister on special regions [Teso, Bunyoro, Northern Uganda and Luweero/Rwenzori] has tabled a proposal to have a single ministry created to house all the special regions being represented in cabinet.
The special regions include that of Teso [state minister Amongin Aporu], Bunyoro [Earnest Kiiza], Northern Uganda [Rebecca Otengo] and Luweero [Sarah Kataike].
The proposal to merge the four ministries is according to Serere county MP Stephen Ochola meant to ensure efficiency in service delivery since less funds shall be used to facilitate political heads of these regions.
He told the parliamentary committee on presidential affairs chaired by Fred Mwesigye that after creating the single ministry, it will have four technical directors in charge of each region but they will be politically supervised by a single full cabinet minister.
Ochola says currently the country is spending a lot of money on maintaining the welfare and facilitation of the four ministers where almost the entire budget allocated goes to facilitating them leaving little funds to benefit the intended regions.
The committee also heard that in this coming FY2014/5, government has not allocated a single coin to the special regions of Bunyoro and that of Teso affairs and therefore wondered what the two regions are going to do in the coming FY2014/5.
Ochola proposed that since government has allocated shs27.2bn to cater for payment of veterans under Luweero ministry, this money should be diverted to the two special regions so that they can do some work in the FY.
The committee also observed that much of the money that is allocated to these special regions is spent at the center instead of going to the districts, but now the members want 40% of this budget sent directly to the districts in those special regions.
Ochola said that all contracts meant to benefit the regions should be signed at district level [not center] for easy monitoring and avoidance of embezzlement of funds just as it was the case with the Kazinda saga.