A section of lawmakers on Parliament’s Budget Committee have questioned the rationale behind gifting Ndejje University, a private University with Shs3.8Bn for preparations of East African University Games yet there are public Universities whose students are studying under trees due to lack of funds to build structures.
While appearing before the Budget Committee, John Twesigye, Chairperson Education Committee said that the Shs3.8Bn was meant for the upgrade and reconstruction of Ndejje University sports facilities in preparations for the East African University Games, slated for December 2023 following their postponement of the games in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Ndejje University is a private University, but it competed with others and won the bid on behalf of Uganda to host the 12th edition of the federation of University games. The University was required to upgrade its sports facilities to a standard befitting of a host nation. The University made a request of UD$8.5M and they were granted US$1M to facilitate the upgrade of its facilities. The Committee recommends that the Shs3.8Bn allocated to Ndejje University for facilitating the games be approved,” said Twesigye.
However, Denis Oguz Lee (Maracha County) who authored the minority report however, asked the Budget Committee not to approve the funding to Ndejje University arguing that the funds contravene the criteria used for supplementary funding that require such expenditures to be unforeseeable and unavoidable.
“I want to ask why we went to host the games if we knew we didn’t have the capacity. I asked the majority whether they have the evidence whether government invested this money and if there was structured way of investing in a private University but there was no evidence to show that government did this investment in the right way. I really feel that their recommendation that we approve that expenditure should be set aside and instead we should regard that as loss of revenue because we don’t know under what arrangement we invested that money, that explanation wasn’t given,” remarked Oguz.
Gorreth Namugga (Mawogola South) wondered if the money won’t end up as nugatory expenditure given the fact that the University asked forUS$8.5M, and the recommendation was that they be given US$1M wondering if the University will be able to put in place reasonable facilities for the games.
She noted, “Shall we have something that pushes them to the conclusion of the activities so that the playground, because remember they asked for a lot of money and they were given less, so we need to be inquisitive whether this Shs3.8Bn will do something or else, we allocate it to another activity that will be concluded as we wait for further funding or for it to be budgeted for in another financial year.”
Dennis Nyengweso (Samia Bugwe Central) wondered why the funds should be spent on a private university yet other public universities are grappling with low funding remarking, “I don’t know how comfortable the Committee is recommending that Government to spend Shs3.8Bn on a private University, the benefits notwithstanding. How comfortable are you that Government Universities are starved of money, they don’t have some of these facilities but the Government is spending a lot of money in a private University.”
The development comes at the time when it was recently revealed that students of the recently acquire public University, Mountains of the Moon University in Kabarole district were studying under trees and verandas because of the lack of infrastructure at the institution.
Ibrahim Ssemujju (Kira Municipality) wondered why the poorly funded Universities aren’t closed and their students and staff absorbed in other fairly funded public universities, “If they aren’t able to operate and there are no funds to operate them, why isn’t the recommendation to close them? Maybe close all universities and transfer them to Makerere University, Mbarara Science and Technology because you can’t operate universities like you operate districts throwing them here and there.”
During the meeting, Oguz also raised concern over regional disparities in the allocation of supplementary funding, citing a case of Muni University that requested for Shs2Bn for wages of its staff, but this request was rejected by Government and instead, supplementary requests to Ndejje University, Makerere University in central region, as well as Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Mountains of the Moon University and Kabale University were approved.
However, Elijah Mushemeza (Sheema South) however rejected Oguz’s submission describing it as sectarian in nature because the budget Committee had recommended to have Muni University’s request for wages to be included.
“So when the minority report insinuates that priority has been given to Universities in western Uganda, I find it sectarian and being raised out of emotions and not being considerate because Makerere University isn’t western Uganda and even the recommendation that the issue of Muni University should be settled, Muni isn’t in western Uganda,” said Mushemeza.
