Finance Minister Matia Kasaija
Government spent over Shs2.6Trn in July 2021, the Monthly Performance of Economy Report for August 2021 authored by the Ministry of Finance has revealed.
“Total expenditure during the month amounted to Shs 2.656Trn translating into 82.1% performance against target. This was on account of lower than planned spending under wages and salaries, other recurrent and domestic development activities. Wages and salary payments amounted to Shs442.09Bn against planned levels and is explained by delayed recruitment in several MDAs as Government continues to implement restriction measures to curb Covid 19,” read in part the report.
Further, Government expenditure on other recurrent and domestic development was worth Shs635.73 billion and Shs 519.56 billion respectively, with the Finance Ministry blaming the poor performance on frontloaded payments which were made during July 2021.
However, expenditure for externally financed projects amounted to Shs 712.10 billion representing a performance of 135.5% against the monthly target, with the bulk of funds about Shs380Bn going towards municipal infrastructure projects.
The development comes at the time, the same report revealed that Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) revenue collections shortfall was to a tune of Shs 79.67 billion, with only Shs1.537Trn collected, representing a 90.0% performance against the target for the month.
According to the Economy Performance report, URA recorded a shortfall in Direct domestic tax collections amounted to a shortfall of Shs10.57Bn, with the poor performance attributed to drop in payment corporation tax and withholding tax collections under Government securities.
Indirect domestic taxes were affected by the underperformances of Value Added Tax on manufactured goods such as beer, cement and soft drinks.
Taxes on international trade and transactions amounted to Shs644.57 billion posting a shortfall of Shs 29.25 billion. This was attributed to lower than projected collections under import duty, as imported taxable goods were lower than expected during the month.
