Ben Kumumanya says elected grassroots councils must take government closer to citizens while putting public resources under the people’s watch
By Brian Mugenyi
Kampala: On the face of it, a Local Council I executive committee may look like the smallest cog in Uganda’s sprawling machinery of government.
But that is precisely where the country’s decentralisation experiment is likely to be judged. At the village level, government stops being an abstract policy.
It becomes a road.
A health centre.
A school.
A government programme.
A public project.
And, sometimes, a question about where the money went.
For Ben Kumumanya, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Local Government, the most significant task facing Uganda’s elected Local Council I and Local Council II executive committees is to extend decentralisation to the people.
That responsibility is closely followed by the duty to strengthen accountability and fight corruption at the grassroots.
The Ministry describes LC I and LC II as the bedrock of Uganda’s decentralised system because they bring leadership and decision-making closer to communities, enabling citizens to identify priorities, monitor public services and hold leaders accountable.
The stakes are particularly high in villages such as Bamutakudde, where LC I Chairman Solomon Sserwanja represents the first elected layer of government that residents can approach when community concerns emerge.
Here, the meaning of decentralisation is straightforward.
Has the road been constructed?
Are government services reaching the people?
Did the intended beneficiary receive support?
Is public property being protected?
And when something goes wrong, does somebody raise the alarm?
These are not merely local questions.
They are questions about whether decentralisation works.
Taking government to the last mile
Uganda’s decentralisation policy was built on the idea that decisions affecting communities should, as far as possible, involve the people affected by those decisions.
That principle becomes most tangible at village and parish level.
The LC I executive committee is responsible for implementing council decisions, convening community meetings, mobilising citizens for government programmes, promoting sanitation and environmental protection, identifying vulnerable households, safeguarding public property and monitoring service delivery.
The LC II executive committee operates at parish or ward level, providing a link between village councils and higher local government structures.
This creates a chain.
The village identifies a problem.
The parish helps coordinate it.
The sub-county and district structures provide technical and administrative responses.
Government programmes move down the same chain.
The strength of decentralisation therefore depends partly on whether information, resources and responsibility can move effectively in both directions.
Government must reach the people, but the people must also be able to reach government.
The corruption connection
This is where the second responsibility of LC I and LC II becomes critical.
The Ministry says grassroots councils have an important role in promoting transparency and accountability, including verifying beneficiaries of government programmes, monitoring public projects and reporting corruption, abuse of office and poor service delivery.
Their proximity to communities gives them an advantage.
A project may be recorded in official documents as complete.
But residents can see whether it exists.
A government programme may have a list of beneficiaries.
But neighbours often know whether those people live in the community and whether they are the intended recipients.
A public facility may receive resources.
But the people who use it can tell whether services have improved.
This does not make LC I or LC II leaders auditors, investigators or prosecutors.
Their role is to identify, monitor, question, document and report through the institutions mandated to investigate and act.
That is how grassroots leadership can become part of Uganda’s wider anti-corruption architecture.
The village as an early-warning system
Corruption rarely arrives in a community carrying a label saying “corruption”.
It can appear as a stalled project.
A missing public asset.
A beneficiary who does not qualify.
A service that is paid for but not delivered.
A road that exists on a government report but not on the ground.
The people closest to these failures are often the people living in the affected communities.
That gives local councils a unique responsibility.
They can hear complaints before they reach district offices.
They can identify irregularities before they become larger losses.
They can mobilise residents to demand explanations.
And they can refer credible complaints to the relevant accountability authorities.
The Ministry has previously pointed to communities exposing corrupt practices during ministerial visits as evidence of the importance of citizen participation in accountability.
This makes the village more than the endpoint of decentralisation.
It can also become its accountability checkpoint.
PDM puts the system to the test
The Parish Development Model provides a particularly important test of this arrangement.
PDM is designed to move government support closer to households through the parish.
That means the success of the programme depends not only on funds being released but also on what happens after resources reach communities.
Who received the support?
Was the person eligible?
Was the enterprise established?
Did the household benefit?
Was the intended intervention delivered?
Those questions cannot be answered effectively from Kampala alone.
They require people who understand the local community.
That is why LC I and LC II leadership matters.
Their role is not to take over the technical functions of government officers.
It is to ensure that communities are informed, involved and able to raise concerns when implementation does not match policy.
A long-awaited return
The renewed focus on grassroots councils comes after years in which Uganda’s LC I and LC II electoral cycle was disrupted.
The return of elected councils therefore offers an opportunity to restore citizen participation at the lowest level of government.
But elections alone do not deepen decentralisation.
The real work begins after the ballot.
It begins when councils convene residents.
When they identify priorities.
When they monitor services.
When they explain government programmes.
When they protect public property.
And when they refuse to look away from corruption.
Mr Kumumanya has also stressed the need to build the capacity of local government leaders so that elected officials understand their responsibilities and can work effectively with technical officers and other institutions.
That distinction matters.
Political leaders identify priorities, represent communities and provide oversight.
Technical officers implement government programmes according to laws, regulations and approved plans.
For decentralisation to work, the two sides must cooperate rather than compete.
Integrity will determine the outcome
The quality of the new councils will therefore depend not simply on who was elected, but on how those leaders use their positions.
An LC executive committee that knows about misuse of public resources but remains silent weakens decentralisation.
A committee that monitors projects, verifies beneficiaries, protects public property and reports wrongdoing strengthens it.
A leader who treats public office as personal property undermines public confidence.
A leader who treats it as public stewardship strengthens the system.
That is why the Ministry has urged communities to elect leaders of integrity, competence and commitment to public service.
The citizen remains the final judge
For Sserwanja and thousands of other LC I leaders, the test will ultimately be found in ordinary questions.
When residents complain, are they heard?
When a project stalls, is it followed up?
When a government programme reaches the village, are the intended beneficiaries identified?
When public property is threatened, is it protected?
When corruption is suspected, is it reported?
And when a citizen wants government intervention, is there a functioning bridge between the village and the higher local government structures?
These are the questions that give decentralisation meaning.
Uganda does not need LC I and LC II councils merely to reproduce government structures at the grassroots.
It needs them to make those structures work for citizens.
The village is where government is closest to the people.
It is also where corruption can become visible earliest.
That makes LC I and LC II more than political structures.
They are part of the mechanism through which Uganda can extend decentralisation, strengthen citizen participation and protect public resources.
The road will tell the story.
The health centre will tell the story.
The school will tell the story.
The government programme will tell the story.
And the citizens will tell whether their elected councils made government more accessible—and public resources more accountable.
The last mile of decentralisation is the village. That is where government must arrive, where citizens must participate, and where the fight against corruption must begin.
