Dr. Aminah Zawedde, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of ICT and National Guidance
Budgets from Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) meant for ICT services should be allocated to the Ministry of Information, Communication and Technology and National Guidance, MPs have advised.
MPs have supported the centralization of ICT budgets on grounds that the current practice of each agency having a budget for ICT has rendered the Ministry idle, despite being a service Ministry that is meant to attend to the technology needs of Government.
Iddi Isabirye (Bunya South) made the proposal while presenting the report by Parliament’s Committee on ICT on the 2026/27 National Budget Framework Paper for the digital transformation programme before the Budget Committee on 28th January 2026.
“The Committee further recommends that sourcing for more funding options to the Programme, including centralising the ICT budget into the Ministry to avoid duplication and ensure efficient and effective utilisation of technology budget. Because every Ministry, every sector is planning for ICT. So, we are saying, why don’t we synchronise all these activities into one service centre? The Minister of ICT is a service ministry. So, if it is a ministry that gives out services, why is it that every ministry has to plan for these ICT services? Yet we can put resources together here and then do the services,” Isabirye said.
He was backed by Moses Magogo (Budiope East) who wondered why the same recommendation is featuring in Parliament reports yet the same call was made in previous reports to Parliament to have all ICT needs of all MDAs sourced at the Ministry of ICT.
“What happens is that all MDAs come here almost asking for the same things. And yet the economies of scale, if these things are brought together centrally, there could be things that are not supposed to be even repeated, there could be even things that can be shared. Everybody was going to do a data centre… Some of these things could be bundled into one, and this recommendation keeps coming. If you’re still making the same recommendations, what happened? Does that mean that the previous recommendations were not taken?” remarked Magogo.
Parliament’s Committee on ICT also raised concern on the budget cuts inflicted on the Digital Transformation Programme, with Isabirye arguing that this falls short of Government’s decision to earmark the sector as part of the drivers of Uganda’s economy.
He pointed out that the allocation to the Digital Transformation Programme has reduced by 28%, causing its share of the national budget to decline from 1% in financial year 2025-2026 to 0.4% in financial year 2026-2027.
“The Committee noted the Digital Transformation Programme that had a requirement of UGX600Bn to effectively deliver on their mandate. However, only UGX273Bn was allocated, leaving a budget deficit of UGX318.53Bn for financial year 2026-2027. The Digital Transformation Programme has been identified as one of the four core pillars in the 10-fold growth strategy. However, these budgetary cuts contradict the designation of the Digital Transformation Programme as a key driver under the ATMs,” he said.
