Findings of a report by the Parliamentary Committee on Public Accounts (PAC) have revealed number of irregularities and anomalies in as far as the management of Constituency Development Fund (CDF) is concerned.

PAC chairperson Shadreck Namalomba told YFM online that the committee found that during 2014/2015 and 2015/2016 financial years, CDF management was undergoing a number of challenges mostly in issues of procurement of materials.

“A total of 16 local councils were audited in the 2016/2017 Financial Year, of which 14 were district councils and 2 were city councils.

“The audit covered transactions for the 2014/2015 and 2015/2016 financial years which had a disbursement of about K1.9 billion for the 16 councils,” he said.

According to Namalomba, who was presenting the report in Parliament, most controlling officers in the Councils lack seriousness when executing their mandated duties.

“It was apparent to the Committee that much as the control systems were strong in design, they were very weak on implementation and compliance, and procurement was one of the most risky areas in CDF management,” said Namalomba.

In addition, the Special Audit Report revealed that in most councils, there were a lot of cases of ineligible expenditure of CDF resources. CDF was being spent without following the set procedures and guidelines.

PAC has since recommended that there should be an overarching review of the current CDF guidelines to ensure that issues of Community Procurement are clearly highlighted.

CDF is one of the Central Government transfers of funds to the Local Councils in line with the fiscal decentralisation process.

CDF complements other existing funds at local council level by directing additional resources to constituencies to solve short-term socio-economic problems identified by the citizens and their elected representatives.