According to the Public Finance Management Act, the government is supposed to table the budget framework before parliament by December 31 and this must be discussed, approved by parliament, and recommendations made to the President by February 1.
Parliament has approved the proposed 43.08 trillion
Shillings National Budget Framework Paper for the financial year
2022/2023. The approved budget is a decrease of 1.69 trillion Shillings
compared to the current financial year budget.
This followed the adoption of the Budget Committee
report tabled by Committee Vice-Chairperson Ignatius Wamakuyu Mudimi, and a minority report of the Opposition signed
by Butambala County MP Muhammad Muwanga Kivumbi, Mawogola South MP Goretti
Namugga and Manjiya County MP John Baptist Nambeshe.
Wamakuyu told parliament that the decrease
in the budget is mainly attributed to a projected fall in external
borrowing for budget support by 2.279 trillion Shillings, while domestic
borrowing is also projected to decrease by 8.72 per cent, equivalent to 1.002 trillion
Shillings.
“Domestic revenues are expected to increase by 2.89
trillion on account of increased tax revenues as a result of the implementation
of the Domestic Revenue Mobilization Strategy and a projected growth of the
economy,” Wamakuyu added.
Wamakuyu explained that funds in the National
budget have been allocated to 20 programmes in line with National Development
Plan -NDP III and that Human Capital Development (6.91 trillion Shillings), Governance
and Security (6.48 trillion Shillings) and Integrated Transport Infrastructure and
Services (4.85 trillion Shillings) have been financially prioritized.
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Government in the financial year 2022/2023 plans to
collect 25.72 trillion Shillings in domestic revenue compared to the 22.83
trillion Shillings targets for this financial year 2021/2022. Documents before Parliament also indicate
that the other sources of funding for the next budget are Grants totalling 869
billion Shillings, Domestic borrowing 10.4 trillion Shillings and external borrowing of 5.99 trillion
Shillings.
Interest Payment and external debt repayment take
the biggest chunk of next financial year’s budget at a total of 10.11 trillion
Shillings and Domestic refinancing allocated 5.08 trillion Shillings. This is equivalent
to 36.2 per cent of the total 43.08 trillion Shillings National budget.
The Budget Committee observed that in order to
support economic recovery and bring on board sections of the population in
the subsistence economy to the monetized economy, the rationalization of the budget
is paramount. Wamakuyu, however, said that rationalization of the wealth funds
must be informed by comprehensive evaluation studies to ensure that the benefits
from these wealth funds are not lost.
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Under the Opposition Minority report, MP Goretti
Namugga recommended that government agencies should decentralize their services
to the Parish Development Model other than the creation of new execution
structures.
“Government has adopted the Parish Development Model
as a National Development Strategy with an emphasis on the parish being the lowest
planning unit. This, therefore, demands in the spirit of decentralization that
all Ministries, Departments and Agencies should operate and execute their
mandates of the parish level. This would require no new structures and additional
resources for MDAs already have been allocated resources to execute their mandates,”
Namugga said.
The Opposition also said that with the shift to
programme-based budgeting, there should be a shift in the prioritization of
audits by the Auditor General.
Namugga said that emphasis should be placed on
setting performance targets for value for money audits. She said that, unlike output-based budgeting whose audit is more targeted to accountability, programme-based
budgeting focuses on outcomes or changes arising from interventions which can
be best ascertained through value for money audits.
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Patrick Isiagi, the Budget Committee Chairperson
agreed with carrying out more value for money audits as highlighted by the
minority report.
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The leader of Opposition in Parliament Mathias Mpuuga Nsamba said that value
for money audits in the programme based budgeting are very key because, in this
form of budgeting, accountability can be easily shielded and protected.
“We need to be very clear on auditing value for
money under the new budget framework which is programme based,” Mpuuga said. He also questioned the direction of the economy
without adequate planning towards the sectors like Agriculture, Oil and others
that are looked at, as some of those to revitalize the economy.
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Amos Lugoloobi, the Minister of State for Planning
said that the Ministry of Finance is going to analyze issues raised in the two reports and
ensure their implementation.
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According to the
Public Finance Management Act, the government is supposed to table the budget
framework before parliament by 31st December and this must be discussed,
approved by parliament, and recommendations made to the President by the 1st
of February.
