Parliament’s Presidential Affairs Committee has asked lawmakers of the Budget Committee to support the request for the provision of additional resources for the provision of facilitation for the Resident District Commissioners (RDCs) to enable them monitor Government project and additional Shs2.8Bn for the phased construction of RDC offices across the country, leading to a total request of Shs23bn.
The plea was made by Alex Byarugaba, Chairperson, Presidential Affairs Committee while presenting the Committee’s report of the 2025/26 for the Office of the President before the Budget Committee.
“The Office of the President to among others moblise the population towards achieving socio-economic development, transformation and prosperity for all. The Committee was informed that the Office of the President requires Shs21Bn to provide for facilitation of the RDCs but only Shs14.8Bn is provided in 2025/26, indicative budget, resulting into a funding gap of Shs6.20Bn. The Committee therefore recommends that Shs6.20Bn be provided as facilitation to RDCs and the size and nature of the districts be among the factors considered,” noted Byarugaba.
According to Byarugaba, there is inadequate office accommodation for RDCs and the Committee found out that the Office of the President requires Shs3.05Bn to construct at least 5 RDC offices every year, but only Shs700M is the indicative allocation of one resulting into a funding gap of Shs2.8Bn.
“With only Shs700M to construct one RDC’s office, it will take Government over 100 years to address the challenge of office accommodation for the RDCs. The Committee therefore recommend that additional Shs2.8Bn be availed annually to the Office of the President to enable the construction of five offices each financial year so as to mitigate the challenge of office accommodation of RDCs in the medium term,” argued Byarugaba.
However, Ssemujju Nganda (Kira Municipality) wondered how long Ugandans will shoulder the financial burden of facilitating RDCs given that the President is always expanding the numbers through several appoints, which he says has bloated the budget.
“You recently got another 500 appointed, now you want offices, so when will this end? As you construct for the existing ones, the President is appointing new ones, creating non-existing portfolio on the public service. Will you feel bad if we recommended that we first reduce the RDCs, they are like 600. When the President came, there were 39 districts, we can have like 39 RDCs,” noted Ssemujju.
