Kitgum Municipal Council officials have recovered government assets from the former Municipal Council Mayor Livingst Walter Tooroma.
The assets comprising a table for the office of the Mayor, four executive chairs for the council, and a motorcycle registration UG 1096Y belonging to the youth council were recovered on Monday.
Torooma who lost the January Mayoral elections handed over office on April 19 this year.
However, it’s alleged that none of the recovered assets was reflected in his handover report.
Richard Okwera Ojara, Kitgum Municipal Council Mayor says that the recovery of the assets was prompted by complaints from the youth council members.
Ojara says the motorcycle had been donated by the Central Government to the Youth Council some two and half years ago but his predecessor instead turned it for personal use.
He notes that the recovered motorcycle, still in good running condition was handed over to the Chairperson Youth Council.
According to Ojara, four of the recovered chairs were allegedly taken to Toroma’s home in 2019 but were never returned to the council. He says the recovery process was in good faith since the council has limited furniture.
But Toromo denied the allegations that he held on to the Municipal council assets even after handing over the office in an interview with URN on Tuesday.
He says he had already returned all the alleged assets in his possession to the Municipal Town Clerk by the time he handed over the office.
“The chief custodian of government asset is the Town Clerk, so if anything was missing and they hadn’t received it, they should have asked the Town Clerk. Unfortunately, they didn’t ask the Town Clerk, where it was kept after my handover wasn’t my concern,” He said.
Toroma described the allegations against him as a ploy to politically defame him.
Efforts to substantiate Toroma’s claims from Kitgum Municipal Council Town Clerk Emmanuel Banya were futile as his phone number wasn’t available by press time.
