The Secretary to Treasury, Ramathan Ggoobi (pictured) has blamed policy makers for the unrealistic nature of the national budget, saying that whenever planners come up with a budget, some of the items are altered thus affecting the performance of the budget at the end of the financial year.
“We have also analyzed this budget trend and in the recent analysis, we found that actually our budget turns out to perform at the Budget Framework Paper level. What we really need to focus on as a country is the way we budget, please allow the people who research, who have the ability to analyze numbers and give them to you as policy makers, to inform the budget. And when we seek concurrence with the policy makers, please give us that support to implement a budget which is practical, to implement a budget which is going to deliver what we intend. But sometimes, you the policy makers are very powerful on us,” said Ggoobi.
He made the remarks while appearing before Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee where the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development had been summoned to respond to the queries raised in the December 2023 Auditor General’s report.
This followed a concern raised by Muwanga Kivumbi (Butambala County), who also doubles as Chairperson PAC, who pointed out findings in the audit report that the difference between what Ministry of Finance was able to warrant and what it was able to pay was to a tune of are Shs5.822Trn and the difference between what the Ministry budgets for the nation and what Government is able to spend on, is Shs9.144Trn.
Muwanga asked, “Why do you give a budget that has continued to be Shs52Trn when in no single year on planet earth have you ever exceeded Shs45Trn in expenditure? For what purpose do you continue to give this rosy picture of the budget yet in no single year are you able to perform. So that is the budget you tell the county, the Ministry of Finance with all the grammar is going to read and say we have the budget?”
However, a section of MPs got defensive at Ggoobi’s remarks, blaming policy makers for the distortions in budget, although, the Secretary to Treasury defended his stance saying, “Policy makers span across the state of Uganda, we know policy makers, we can define them. But this is the fact, it is the fact that I am telling you.”
The Secretary to Treasury’s rebuttal was however rejected by Muwanga who said, “The country is treated to a charade, some occasion of fashion of a budget that isn’t realistic but also, you base on the untrue figure to do a 3% that is why for me, the first fraud in this budget process starts with this figure and once this figure is wrong, then the other frauds follow.”
