Outgoing Local Leaders Ordered to Hand Over Official Stamps and Public Assets to Ensure Service Continuity

What the report says

Uganda’s Ministry of Local Government has told district and municipal administrators to ensure an orderly transfer of office from outgoing parish and village council leaders to newly elected officials. In the report from Watchdog Uganda, Permanent Secretary Ben Kumumanya said Chief Administrative Officers and Town Clerks should oversee the handover so local services continue without interruption.

The directive follows recent grassroots elections, with parish polls held on July 28, 2026, and village elections completed on August 10, 2026. According to the article, a circular dated August 14, 2026, set a 14-day deadline for swearing-in, handover and formal takeover at parish and village level. Kumumanya stressed that local council structures are central to day-to-day governance, including issues such as roads, sanitation, dispute resolution and monitoring of development programs.

The Ministry also instructed outgoing officials to return public property and administrative materials in their possession. These include official rubber stamps, seal kits, government-issued transport where applicable, logbooks, registry records and other documents. The aim, as described by Watchdog Uganda, is to preserve institutional continuity and prevent incoming leaders from starting afresh without records or tools.

The article adds that parish chiefs and town agents should help prepare written handover reports covering ongoing projects, unresolved matters and financial accountability. This matters because orderly transitions at the local level are essential to Uganda’s decentralised governance system and to uninterrupted service delivery in communities.