Members of Parliament have questioned officials from the Office of the Chief Government Valuer over the office’s failure to value assets held by local governments. The lawmakers said the delays have left districts unable to dispose of public property.
The officials, led by Chief Government Valuer Gilbert Kermundu, appeared before the Public Accounts Committee on Local Government (PAC-LG), chaired by Mukono Municipality MP Betty Nambooze.
Nambooze said the committee’s oversight visits had found that several districts were holding assets they could not dispose of. According to her, the districts had written to the Chief Government Valuer several times but never received a response.
The committee said the assets could not be disposed of because they had not been valued.
The hearing focused on the undervaluation of public assets and weaknesses in how local governments track them.
Lawmakers also asked Kermundu to respond to claims that the Valuation Department asks districts for fuel money and overnight allowances before valuing their assets.
Kermundu denied the claims. He said his department did not have enough staff, and its regular monthly budget could not cover travel to distant districts.
He said local governments are responsible for covering valuers’ travel costs, but often fail to provide the money.
Committee members expressed surprise that the department has no field budget of its own to respond to recurring audit queries from local governments.
The Office of the Chief Government Valuer asked Parliament to increase its budget by at least Shs10 billion.
In September, the committee reported inconsistent asset valuations in several local governments. In Luweero, it said, district officials had valued motorcycles at Shs12 million each and a working motor vehicle at only Shs4 million, and recorded land values as falling rather than rising.
Nambooze accused some local governments of deliberately undervaluing public property worth billions of shillings.
“We suspect they are doing this to facilitate the disposal of public property to private buyers at prices well below actual market worth,” she said.
Katerera County MP Boaz Atwijukire raised concern that many government entities have failed to set up asset registers, which he attributed to the high cost of valuation.
He said Rubirizi District, created 15 years ago, still has no asset register. He said local governments struggle to engage government valuers because of the cost, a burden that falls on entities already working with limited budgets.
“I am hopeful that an upcoming report would propose solutions, including a dedicated national budget allocation to support asset valuation across local governments,” Atwijukire said.
He urged the government to fund and equip its valuers rather than pass the cost on to local governments.
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