Kasaija arriving to read the 2022/23 budget
The Minister of Finance, Matia Kasaija has revealed that Government will not implement any economic measures to curb the rising commodity prices because such actions would cause long term effects on Uganda’s economy.
The Minister made the revelation during the presentation of the 2022/2023 national budget at Kololo Ceremonial Grounds on Tuesday afternoon.
Kasaija blamed the skyrocketing commodity prices on the Covid-19 pandemic that disrupted the supply chain and the Russia-Ukraine conflict that has led to increase in cost of fuel, cereals and wheat yet the two nations are among the biggest producers of these products.
“Government can’t influence price levels whose changes are driven by external shocks that are outside its control.Therefore, we will not be applying measures which can lead to long term effects and lead to painful distortions in the economy,” Kasaija said.
He however said that there will be some appropriate measures to curb rising prices of commodities like; supporting farmers to grow fast maturing foods to ensure sufficient domestic supply, expediting improvement of alternative fuel import goods across lake Victoria to avoid possible unnecessary disruptions.
The Minister also said that Government will embark on the construction of additional fuel storage infrastructure in the medium term and stock them adequately, expedite commercial oil production and development of the oil refinery.
The Finance Minister also said that in the coming budget, emphasis will be put on enhancing security, rule of law and fighting corruption arguing that peace and security are the bedrock of socio-economic transformation and must remain priority of government.
“The recent surge in cattle theft in Karamoja and cross border conflicts in Karamoja regions have been and will continue to be addressed. In the recent supplementary buidget, Government provided Shs112.5Bn to facilitate UPDF to carry out operations and Ministry of Works to construct security roads in Karamoja,” Kasaija said.
Out of the Shs48.1Trn budget, Security and has been allocated Shs3.987Trn.
