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Aceng noted that she isn’t aware of any budget cuts since they have just received the first budget call circular from government, which isn’t conclusive because it doesn’t contain external funding and other sources like loans.
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The Health Minister
Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng has dismissed claims that the Health Ministry budget for
the 2020/2021 has been slashed.
She says claims doing
rounds in the media that the health budget for the 2020/2021 financial year
budget has been cut to Shs. 1.5 trillion from Shillings 2.5trillion this
financial year are misleading.
Aceng noted that she
isn’t aware of any budget cuts since
they have just received the first budget call circular from government, which isn’t
conclusive because it doesn’t contain external funding and other sources like loans.
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She disclosed that money
from the Global Fund and Gavi are not captured in the Shs1.5trillion, adding
that the true picture of health sector will end up with will be got when the third
budget call circular is issued.
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On Sunday, members of civil society held a press conference complaining that the
cuts in the social sector that include health will hurt the country since this
is where majority of the poor citizens rely.
Julius Mukunda, who heads the Civil Society Budget Advocacy Group (CSBAG) told
journalists that while the recurrent expenditure is set to increase by
Shs1trillion in the new financial year, the development budget is set to reduce
by Shs 1.4trillion.
He also noted that expenditure
for social development including health is set to reduce as this ending
financial year the health sector got 7.9% of the budget and now falls to 5.1%.
Aceng
says these reductions don’t mean that there are services that will be missed
since some of those monies budgeted for last year were meant to finance projects
like that of refurbishing the Mulago specialized hospital, which has now come
to an end.
However, over the
years, there have been complaints of government failure to meet its 2001
commitment of the Abuja Declaration where countries agreed to allocate the health
sector 15% of their national budgets.
However, Uganda has
failed to meet the target more than 15 years later.
