Office of the President urged to Prioritize RDCs’ Office Accommodation

The Office of the President has been urged to prioritise the construction of office accommodation for Resident District Commissioners (RDCs). According to the Auditor General’s report for the Financial Year 2020/2021 out of the 146 RDCs, only 107 are being rented for by the Presidency, while 15 are accommodated in government-built offices, and 24 RDCs lack offices.

While appearing before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) (Central) on Tuesday to respond to the audit queries, the technical team from the office of the president led by the secretary, Hajji Yunus Kakande said the Presidency has developed a strategy to construct offices for RDCs.

“In order to address the challenge of office accommodation for RDCs, the Office devised a two-pronged strategy combining aspects of constructing offices for RDCs in a phased manner and also engaging host local governments to accommodate the field officers on newly constructed administration blocks in the districts,” Emmanuel Walani, the undersecretary, office of the president said.

However, the delays to construct these offices have been attributed to insufficient releases from the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development.

“Whereas the idea to construct seven RDC offices per annum was envisioned in FY 2010/2011, this was only implemented for one financial year. In the subsequent financial years, the ministry of finance reduced the construction budget by 71 percent per financial year,” Walani said.

As a result of the budgetary constraints, the president's office has been forced to construct only one RDC office per annum and to rent office space, which according to the auditor general’s report is unsustainable. In FY 2020/ 2021, government spent Shs445 million on rent for RDCs’ offices.