PRESS STATEMENT ON KEY EVENTS IN KIRYANDONGO DISTRICT

Ministerial Visit

Kiryandongo- September 30,2021, Kiryandongo district local government has hosted two state ministers in the last one month who were on their routine monitoring of the status of implementation of government programs across districts in Uganda.

The ministers hosted were Hon. Jennifer Namuyangu Kacha minister of state for Bunyoro affairs on August 25,2021 who came to launch the Bunyoro affairs fund which is given to selected beneficiary groups across the district. Kiryandongo district has received and disbursed funds worth 65.9 million to beneficiary groups under Bunyoro affairs fund since 2014. It is our hope that the selected beneficiary groups make good use of the funds received so as to improve on their livelihoods.

The minister of state for Economic monitoring in the office of the president Hon. Peter Ogwang in line with his mandate also visited Kiryandongo district on September 18,2021 to ascertain the cause of stalling of government projects in the district. During an engagement meeting with the district authorities, a number of projects were presented to the minister who later visited the sites of the stalled projects in Kiryandongo district.

Among the sites visited was Karuma primary school which had been refurbished through the Resettlement Action Plan by the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development. However, while inspecting the refurbished structures at Karuma Primary school, the minister was not satisfied with the workmanship which prompted him to hand over the supervising Engineer to police for recording statement to aid the investigations. The minister also inspected Kiryandongo town council headquarters under construction to find out the reasons for delayed completion. While at Kiryandongo town council headquarters, the minister asked the town clerk and the town engineer to record statements which will aid investigations into the causes of delayed completion of the town council headquarters.

Kiryandongo district has successfully implemented and delivered all the planned projects in the various Financial Years as per their scope of works. The political and technical teams of Kiryandongo district should be commended for their commitment towards service delivery. The community is called upon to render all the necessary support to the district in the implementation of government programs.

COVID-19 and Status of Health services

Kiryandongo district has continued to record numbers of COVID-19 positive cases cumulatively at 818 spread across the entire district. The increasing number of positive cases is attributed to laxity in observance of the SOPs.

Important to note is the district is undertaking vaccination of most at risk populations such as the teachers, health workers, security personnel, persons aged 18-50 years with underlying illnesses and the persons 50 years and above. People in the most at risk category as well as students 18 years and above are encouraged to visit the vaccination centers within the district that is Kiryandongo General hospital, Diima HCIII, Mutunda HCIII, Panyadoli HCIII, St Mary’s HCIII Kigumba, Kigumba HCIII and Masindi Port HCIII.

The district has also fully utilized the 279 million COVID-19 emergency funds which were disbursed to support the activities of district task force, sub county taskforces, village task forces and village health teams.

However, there was a delay in the disbursement of funds to the village taskforces and the village health teams which was caused by the Integrated Financial Management System-IFMS. It has to be noted that the district can only withdraw 40 million shillings in a month as opposed to 129 million shillings which was allocated for VHTs and 32.3 million for Village task forces. Therefore, there was need to find ways of withdrawing 161.3 million shillings for VHTs and village task forces which was above the monthly district withdrawal limit.

 

 

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Friday, October 1, 2021