Parliament has been informed that Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) are expected to suffer budget cuts to a tune of Shs2.77Trn in the Financial Year 2024/25 due to reduction in donor support and the increased cost of servicing Uganda’s public debt.
The revelation was made by Martin Mugarra, Minister of State for Tourism while appearing before Parliament’s Tourism Committee who informed MPs that the Ministry of Finance had issued a communication announcing the failure to raise the budget to a tune Shs2.77Trn, thus the need to effect the budget cuts across Government.
“On 3rd April 2024, the Ministry of Finance communicated budget cuts to several MDAs and the Tourism MDAs were not spared. Total cuts across the MDAs amounted to Shs2.776Trn and resulted from the gaps created by the increase in the debt servicing costs and reduction in budget support from Development partners,” read in part the statement by Mugarra.
The pronouncement by the Ministry of Finance prompted the Tourism Committee to invite the two Ministries of Tourism and Trade alongside their agencies to defend their budgets, with Mwine Mpaka (Mbarara City South) saying the agencies will now be required to provide detailed costings of the activities they set out to do in 2024/25.
He said: “Ministry of Trade is going to have a budget cut of around Shs62Bn and Ministry of Tourism is going to have a budget cut of Shs16Bn. Uganda National Bureau of Standards Shs2.6Bn, whereas UTB is also going to get a budget cut of around Shs11Bn. So, we invited them here to give us the costs of their workplans, we want to understand, if it is a workshop how many people are going to attend the workshop, how much you are giving each person so that when we appear before the Budget Committee, we can ably defend and where we can’t defend, we will concede and that money is reallocated somewhere else.”
“During the ministerial policy statement, we had a budget of about Shs61Trn, we understand they have a shortfall of about Shs2.7Trn, therefore it is going to be around Shs57Trn. So now we have to adjust according to the national envelop. We have realized that sometimes you take it for granted and when you ask for costs, they can’t defend the costs so we want to be on the safer side to defend the money before the Budget Committee to ensure we get no leakages,” added Mwine.
According to the documents before the Committee, the Ministry of Tourism that was projected to receive Shs61.1696Bn in 2024/25, will instead receive Shs55.829Bn after Shs5.867Bn was cut from its budget, while Uganda Tourism Board has had Shs11.493Bn cut from its budget, thus leaving the entity with only Shs16.134Bn down from Shs27.627Bn that had initially been provided in its ministerial policy statement.
However, it is only Uganda Wildlife Authority whose that hasn’t faced budget cuts and instead had additional Shs107.968Bn added onto its budget owing to the anticipated revenue the Authority is expected to correct, a move that will see its budget increase from Shs81.433Bn to Shs181.401Bn.
On the other hand, Uganda Wildlife Education Centre (UWEC) also recorded budget cuts worth Shs1.630Bn, thus reducing its budget from Shs16.498Bn to Shs14.868Bn, and most of the areas that received budget cuts are travel expenses, workshops and seminars and advertising and public relations.
