Joseph Ayollo, Karamoja – Leaders in the Karamoja region have continued issuing serious warnings to the two line ministries, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Water and Environment, to stop making paper accountability on Karamoja projects, yet in actual sense most of the projects are ghost projects.
According to the leaders, the two line ministries are good at paper accountability, but when it comes to reality, there is nothing on the ground.
Mr. Paul Lokol, the District LCV Chairperson of Nabilatuk District, said it hurts seeing the Ministry of Agriculture claiming ownership of projects that were done by the Ministry of Water and Environment in Karamoja instead of starting their own projects.
Equally, the Water Ministry is also claiming projects done by the Ministry of Agriculture.
He noted that there are some areas where the Ministry of Water and Environment had conducted studies to construct a multipurpose dam, but the Ministry of Agriculture rushed there and instead constructed a valley tank, which does not help the Karamoja situation.
“We don’t want valley tanks in Karamoja. What we want is a multipurpose dam that can serve the community for a long period of time without drying,” he said.
Jino Meri, the District Chairperson of Kaabong, said they were not happy seeing the two ministries clashing and duplicating work in the region.
According to Mr. Meri, under the Resilience Programme, Karamoja has not seen a good impact at all, yet this was a project that was being implemented 80% by the Ministry of Agriculture.
John Paul Kodet, the District Chairperson of Napak, said there was a need for the President to intervene and bring these ministries into order so that every ministry works according to its area of expertise.
Several attempts to get comments from the two ministries proved futile, as none of the communications officers picked up repeated calls or replied to several SMS messages.
