The wait for the conclusion of the cattle compensation in the Greater North continues as the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Norbert Mao, has announced that the government requires Shs900 billion to settle the case.
The announcement follows complaints of delay and bureaucracy in the compensation process "the President (Museveni) will order a forensic audit so that the suspicions, the accusations of corruption, management, bureaucracy and unnecessary delays are sorted once and for all" Mao announced after appearing on a local radio station talk-show in Gulu on the afternoon of Saturday.
Therefore, the people waiting to be compensated for the loss of their cattle during the days of insurgency in the Greater North will have to hang on a little longer.
According to the minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Norbert Mao, the government will conduct a forensic audit to find out why the process has taken longer than expected "we don't want the government to pay the price for individual mistakes, the bad eggs should be isolated and punished".
He also says the government requires around 900 billion shillings to compensate everyone "in the financial year 2021/22 there was some payment, financial year 2022/23 there was a budget but no money was released, in the financial year 2023/24 there has been some little release and we expect that government will add money (because) we require almost 900 billion (shillings).
In the recently concluded regional parliamentary sitting in Gulu City, the chairperson of the Lango Parliamentary Group, Ms Judith Alyek, carried files in protest against the delay and bureaucracy involved in the cattle compensation.
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"As I speak now, only 18,000 people have been compensated in the last three years because government gave Shs50 billion to be shared within three sub regions," she said.
"Lango people stayed in the Internally Displaced People's camps for 20 years from 1986 to 2006, they lost everything and this is not a joke."
In Gulu, NRM party registrar George Ovola says if the compensation issue is not settled it will be overtaken by election events "and after we are going to have another attorney general who is going to come with another story and this will be our problem".
Mr Oola adds that government should settle this cattle compensation issue the end of this year.
The cattle compensation is supposed to benefit over 25, 000 people in 29 districts in the sub regions of Acholi, Lango and Teso.
Vocal sons and daughters of the soil like Chairperson of Acholi Boda Boda Association Thomas Oboma believe that government should focus on paying a few people to zero in each quarter.
However, Mao says soon President Museveni will meet the claimants face to face "because some of the people making the most noise, never lost a single cow".
