Ramathan Ggoobi, the Secretary to the Treasury
Uganda’s economy is recovering well from external and internal shocks, Ramathan Ggoobi, the Secretary to the Treasury, has said.
While briefing the media on quarter three expenditure releases for FY 2023/24 at the Ministry of Finance headquarters in Kampala on Monday, Ggoobi said economy has expanded to Shs.184.89 trillion (US$49.5 billion) by end of June 2023, up from 162.75 trillion in 2021/22. This means the economy has been growing at a rate of 5.2% in real terms.
He revealed that the drivers of this expansion were: services growing at 6.2% (especially in trade, tourism, education, ICT and Arts and Entertainment), agriculture at 4.8% (particularly fisheries activities at 8.6%, livestock at 8.8%, and food crops growing at 4.7%).
In the real sector, he said, there has been general improvement in the level of economic activity.
“Sentiments about economic and business conditions in the country over the past quarter have improved,” he said.
He further revealed that the cumulative revenue collections for the period July to December 2023 amounted to Shs13.301 trillion against a target of Shs14.169 trillion. This implies a revenue shortfall of Shs867.91 billion. He attributed the shortfall to lower than expected collection on customs duties (on account of less imports and disruptions of petroleum products and VAT),” Ggoobi said, adding that they shall step up efforts to cover the gap.
During the press briefing, Ggoobi emphasized that all Accounting officers must ensure that they pay wages, salaries, pensions and gratuity by 28th of every month and payrolls for salaries & pensions should be displayed on notice boards of govt institutions.
On the implementation of the Parish Development Model, the PSST said 30th June,2023 marked the end of the establishment phase of the PDM ( FY 2021/22 to 2022/23) and the beginning of the stabilization phase FY (2023/24 to FY 2024/25) and this involves capitalization of PDM SACCOs with an additional Shs100 million every FY.
