The Minister for local government, Raphael Magyezi, announced on Wednesday the postponement of the Local Council II and III elections for an additional three months. The current term for the Local Councils (LCs) had originally expired on January 10th, 2023.
The government had previously extended the elections for another 180 days, setting the new deadline for January 5th, 2024. This extension was attributed to the lack of funds in the resource envelope to carry out the elections across 60,800 villages.
In a subsequent communication at the Uganda Media Center on January 2nd, the Minister provided additional reasons for the further extension. Magyezi cited two main factors for the decision. Firstly, the government still faced financial constraints, with inadequate funds amounting to over 505 billion required to conduct the elections if held by secret ballot.
“The Ministry of finance has not released the money to the EC based on other priorities.inadequate funding and other logistics for the elections makes it extremely difficult to conduct the elections of administrative units.”
He further explained: “The local govt ministry is in the process of updating all administrative units in the country and this is in liason with relevant authorities. Without clarity in numbers, names and boundaries, it is not ppssible to conduct elections.”
The Minister also referenced Article 11A(d) of the Local Government Councils Regulations Act, which grants him the authority to extend elections by 180 days at a given time.
Regulation 11A of the Local Government Councils Regulations, under Schedule 3 of the Local Council Regulations Act, empowers the Minister to extend or reedit the election timeline. This extension can be executed through a notice in the gazette and the national paper of circulation, subject to the approval of the cabinet.