Makerere University and top 35 government of Uganda entities risk their budgets for 2017/18 not being passed if a report by the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) is anything to go by.
Sylvia Ntambi, the chairperson of the Equal Opportunities Commission asked the Parliamentary Budget Committee not to approve the budgets for Makerere University, Mbarara University, Kabale University and a host of Uganda missions in various countries over failure to pass the 50% compliance mark for gender-responsive budgets as stipulated in the Public Finance Management Act 2015.
According to this Act, all government ministries, departments and agencies must present their policy statements with a Gender and Equity Certificate of Compliance.
This is to ensure that the statements are gender and equity responsive, specifying measures taken to equalize opportunities for men, women, persons with disabilities and other marginalized groups.
Equal Opportunities Commission presented its report to the Parliamentary Budget committee on Wednesday.
Other entities whose budget policy statements are not gender responsive according to EOC include while Lira Referral Hospital, Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) and Uganda AIDS Commission (UAC).
Uganda’s Missions in Tanzania, Ethiopia, DR Congo, Denmark, Somalia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, China, Sudan, Rwanda, Germany, Washington, Ankara, Russia, Juba, Japan, Geneva, Nigeria, Italy, Belgium, Iran, Bujumbura, Canada, Canberra, Libya, England, France and New York didn’t also pass the 50% mark.
Mombasa and Guangzhou are the consulates that are non-compliant.
In response, the Parliamentary Budget Committee Chairman, Amos Lugolobi gave the affected institutions one week to clean their budgets in line with the Public Finance Management Act 2015, lest their budgets will not be passed.
