Uganda’s domestic arrears have increased from Shs8.049Tn in 2022 to Shs10.818Tn in 2023, representing a 34.4% increase, the Auditor General, John Muwanga, has said.
The AG made the revelation in the June 2023 audit report he recently submitted to Parliament indicating that the outstanding arrears represents 20.6% of the revised budget of government of Uganda for the financial year 2022/23.
“This is an indication of the failure of the commitment control system and exposes government to litigation risks. The growth trend appears unsustainable and on the rise. This could also be as a result of approving supplementary budgets which amounted to Shs4.417Tn during the year under review with no matching funding, other than utilising the already identified revenue sources, hence reallocating funding within the existing resource envelope and impacting MDAs across government,” reads in part the audit report.
The development comes at the time when some MPs recently questioned the variance in figures submitted by Ministry of Finance on the actual outstanding domestic arrears after documents submitted before the Budget Committee by the Ministry placed the amount to Shs2.7Trn, yet there was another document on the Ministry of Finance website uploaded on 10th January that placed the domestic arrears to Shs10.8Trn.
However, the MPs also questioned Government commitment to clear domestic arrears after only Shs200Bn was availed in the 2024/25 budget, which is within the same range as Shs215Bn that has been allocated in the current financial year 2023/24.
In the breakdown, Treasury Operations has the highest amount of domestic arrears, having increased from Shs4.583Trn in 2021/22 to Shs5.989Trn in 2022/23, and it is followed by Ministry of Finance with an increase from Shs473.154Bn to Shs976.498Bn and Uganda National Roads Authority whose domestic arrears also sky rocketed from Shs471.827Bn to Shs621.496Bn.
The other agencies with high domestic arrears include; Ministry of Defence that rose from Shs235.821Bn to Shs425.570Bn, while that of Ministry of Works and Transport shot from Shs75.367Bn to Shs215.418Bn, while the domestic arrears for Ministry of Water & Environment also rose from Shs93.048 in 2021/22 to Shs196.027Bn in 2022/23.
The other agencies whose domestic arrears also recorded an increase include; Prisons rising from Shs81.658Bn to Shs182.356, Ministry of Education and Sports recorded an increase from Shs77.427Bn to Shs127.208, while that of Police increased from Shs77.318Bn to Shs108.971Bn.
Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) also recorded an increase in domestic arrears having moved from Shs9.238Bn in 2021/22 to Shs103.858Bn in 2022/23 and National Information Technology Authority-Uganda (NITA-U) also recorded an increment from Shs 21.847Bn to Shs40.196Bn.
