MOYO LOCAL LEADERS EQUIPPED WITH KNOWLEDGE ON BY-LAWS AND ORDINANCES

Local council ones and twos including town agents during capacity building at Valley Breeze Hotel

By Araba Kalsum

Moyo

The Uganda Law Society has conducted a capacity-building training for Local Council One and Two chairpersons and town agents in Moyo District.

The training, held at Valley Breeze Hotel, focused on strengthening the leaders’ understanding of ordinances and by-laws and how they can be enacted and implemented at the sub-county, parish and village levels.

Henry Chabo, the Legal Officer for the Legal Aid Project at the Uganda Law Society in Moyo District, says the training was aimed at equipping local leaders with knowledge of the procedures involved in making and implementing by-laws.

“This training that we have just conducted for local leaders is to build their capacity to understand what these by-laws do and how they are enacted. When you don’t know the procedure of enacting them, any process where you do not follow what is written down in the law nullifies the end result. That’s why we are equipping them with that knowledge to sharpen their familiarity with basic laws and procedures they can adopt.”

Chabo says local councils play an important role in adjudicating disputes at the community level, making it necessary for leaders to understand the laws governing their work.

Amoko Emmanuel, the Local Council One Chairperson of Metu Quarter Village in Elenderea Parish, Moyo Town Council, says the training has empowered him to better identify and address challenges affecting communities.

“This training is very important. I really feel empowered because we have a lot of issues in the communities, particularly in our villages. This is now a stepping stone, a process of identifying the needs what do our people need, what are the problems affecting us at the village level and how can we support our sub-counties, including the councilors, in the process of enacting these laws?”

Amoko says the leaders will engage their communities upon returning from the training to identify challenges and work towards appropriate solutions.

Meanwhile, Tonny Ojok Obonyo, the facilitator and Chief Magistrate of Moyo Chief Magistrate’s Court, has called for more sensitization of local leaders on the proper procedures for making ordinances and by-laws.

Ojok says local governments have powers to make laws to regulate issues within their areas of jurisdiction, but such laws must not conflict with national legislation.

“My appeal is that much as the law allows the district council to pass ordinances to regulate problems within the district, and also empowers our sub-counties to make by-laws to regulate and solve problems within our sub-counties, parishes or villages, massive sensitisation is needed. Our leaders need to be sensitised and trained on how to make these ordinances for example, to make laws that do not conflict with the national laws.”

Ordinances and by-laws are part of Uganda’s local government legal framework and are used by local authorities to regulate issues within their areas of jurisdiction.

Written by newsroom-radiopacis