Soroti District Councilors are protesting the delayed payment of the Covid-19 and Polio mass vaccination allowances.
On Thursday, the councilors had been presented with a supplementary budget of more than One Billion Shillings. However, they realized that more than 200 Million Shillings passed as supplementary in the previous council sittings had not been paid to the beneficiaries.
Rose Tino, the Tubur Sub County, and Town Council female councilor threatened to block a supplementary budget due to the delayed payment of allowances to health workers, Village Health Teams, and Village Chairpersons.
She demanded to know why the groups had not been paid allowances yet the Ministry of Health released funds.
The delayed payment is now affecting another Covid-19 vaccination activity that was supposed to start on Thursday across the district.
Bob Owiny, the Tubur Male Councilor said that the issue of spending money for the purpose it’s meant for is becoming a problem in the district.
It took more than two hours for the Speaker of the Council, Stephen Olebe to persuade the councilors to approve some of the items in the supplementary budget.
During the launch of the Covid-19 mass vaccination exercise in Soroti, the Minister of Health, Jane Ruth Aceng said that the teams had been facilitated to ensure that the exercise covers at least one million people in the Teso Sub Region.
Consequently, the Ministry released more than two billion shillings to facilitate the Covid-19 mass vaccination activities in Teso and Lango sub-regions.
Simon Peter Edoru Ekuu, the Soroti LCV Chairperson attributed the delayed payment of allowances to the failure of the payment system.
Dr. Charles Okhadi, the Soroti District Health Officer declined to comment on the matter when contacted.