Ramathan Ggoobi, Secretary to Treasury
The Ministry of Finance has said Parliament, Judiciary and other Government agencies that have been lamenting about budget cuts that more items included in their ministerial policy statements that don’t suit into the priorities of Government will not be funded.
Ramathan Ggoobi, Secretary to Treasury made the revelation during the 2022/2023 national sensitization workshop with the journalists at Hotel Africanna in Kampala on Friday.
Ggoobi said that new measures are intended to put an end to the practice in Uganda, where some heads of institutions have been personalizing budgets and even when the priorities change, these individuals still want to lay a claim on these budgets.
“We have had a serious challenge with the Covid pandemic which has affected our economy, society and welfare. Now, you wanted a budget which was programmed before Covid to remain the same even when Covid has hit the country,” Ggoobi said.
The Secretary to Treasury warned that going forward, Government is going to have a budget that is informed by the priorities and those priorities are stated in the National Development Plan III.
“So what you are calling budget cuts is actually budget rationalization to fit the priority. The priority right now is to keep Ugandans alive, to avoid the covid effect and then recover the economy of Uganda,” he said, adding: “So if you have been having, so if you have been having a budget which was planned to address certain things which aren’t in the priorities, we revise that budget.”
It should be noted that Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Anita Among, lashed out at Finance Ministry for cutting the budget of Parliament, telling off the Treasury not to be disrespectful to the level of reducing Legislature into beggars.
Information from the Ministry of Finance indicated that Shs203.417Bn was recovered after implementing some budget cuts on travel abroad in the 2021/2022 national budget on 321 entities.
Among the biggest victims of the budget cuts included Ministry of Finance whose Shs25.961Bn that the Ministry had set aside for travel abroad was taken away. Next victim was Parliament that had Shs24.567Bn removed, while Judiciary lost Shs2.029Bn, National Curriculum Development Center (NCDC) and Uganda revenue Authority Shs8.832Bn.
The Ministry of Finance also had to recover Shs8.832Bn from Uganda Revenue Authority, Shs11.642Bn from Missions Abroad, Shs4.268 was recovered from National Citizenship and Immigration Control, Auditor General lost Shs3.989Bn, while Electoral Commission lost Shs2.50Bn, and Ministry of Water and Environment lost Shs2.583Bn.
Equal Opportunities Commission didn’t survive the massacre with Shs1.390Bn removed, Uganda National Examination Board had Shs1.712Bn removed, Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development lost Shs4.190Bn, Ministry of Education lost Shs7.374Bn.
The Office of the President and State House both lost Shs1.925Bn and Shs8.002Bn respectively, while both Office of the Prime Minister and Ministry of Defence both lost Shs4.310Bn and Shs5.141Bn respectively.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs lost Shs4.554Bn, Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs lost Shs4.875Bn, Ministry of Agriculture had Shs4.774Bn removed from its budget, Ministry of Lands lost Shs2.560Bn and Makerere University lost Shs4.322Bn and the National Population Council had Shs1.977Bn.
This is good cause most budgets were being approved and spent on non income businesses hence making the wanaishi to continue suffering with backsliding economy of the state.