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Parliament approves budget for financial year 2016/17

Gerald Businge — Wed, 04 May 2016 11:30:56 +0000

Parliament yesterday approved the budget for the financial year 2016/17. The approved budget is worth 26.3 billion shillings moving from the last financial year’s budget of 23.9 trillion shillings. Ntenjeru north MP Amos Lugolobi told parliament chaired by Rebecca Kadaga that the figure was agreed upon by the committee after thorough scrutiny of the budget and making reallocations to the items which were affected before.

The budget figure was approved amid some resistance from a few members of parliament who wanted the budget delayed until the ministry of foreign Affairs gives a status report on the Uganda embassies and missions abroad.

Some members of parliament like Budadiri west MP Nathan Nadala Mafabi , Paul Mwiru had stood their ground resisting the passing of this budget without a report on the Uganda’s embassies abroad. Nandala told parliament that embassies abroad are poorly managed due to under funding though he was given assurance that this financial year 15 billion shillings was allocated for proper management of the embassies which have been facing underfunding for along time.

However the minister in charge of prime minister’s office Prof. Tarsis Kabwegyere pleaded and MPs later allowed the budget approved on promise that the report on Uganda embassies abroad is brought to parliament before the end of this week. This was approved by the parliamentary committee on budget chaired by Ntenjeru north MP Amos Lugolobi. Lugolobi told parliament that the figure was agreed upon by the committee after thorough scrutiny of the budget and making reallocations to the items.

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Ngobi calls for end of infighting within government offices

Isaac Senabulya — Mon, 02 May 2016 15:45:52 +0000

The president of the Uganda Local Government Association and the current Jinja district chairperson, Fred Ngobi is calling upon the newly elected political heads at local government level to desist from involving in leadership and power fights with the district technical wing if they are to better serve the communities that elected them. Ngobi says, many political leaders at district level have failed to effectively service their communities following serious engagements in power fights between them and the technical wings, something the ULGA president says should stop, adding that both sides should understand their roles properly.

Ngobi further reminds government to increase the budget allocations for the local governments from the current 15% to 38% saying this will help the local govt effectively extend services to the communities since they are left with a huge work load compared to the central government.

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National budget reaches 27 Trillion

Isaac Senabulya — Fri, 29 Apr 2016 20:44:50 +0000

The National budget for the Financial Year 2016/17 awaiting parliament approval hit a record of 27 Trillion Uganda Shillings going up compared to the last financial year of 24.1 trillion shillings due to unforeseen items which were not included in the Budget. This Financial year Budget 2015/2016 shot up to 24.1 Trillion Shillings from Shillings 18 Trillion in the financial year 2014/15.

Government tabled an addendum to the Budget amounting to Shillings 6 Trillion making it 27 trillion shillings. The Chairperson of the Budget Committee who is also Ntenjeru North MP Amos Lugolobi says there are also funds that government of Uganda wants to borrow which were not included in the next year’s Budget 2016/17. He says the government also did not include the machine for the general body checkup at Mulago hospital worth 16 Billion shillings which must be considered before the budget is passed by Parliament.

According to the Ministry the budget for the 2016/17 financial year will focus on the following areas: Maintaining and sustaining National Security and Defense as a fundamental condition for economic growth and development; Promotion of Production, Productivity, Investment and Export of Goods and Services through Value addition to Strategic Commodities; Sustaining the Development and Maintenance of Strategic Infrastructure with emphasis on Energy and Transport to Accelerate the country’s competitiveness; enhancing Human Capital Development by improving Access to Quality Critical Social Service and Skills Development; Enhancing Domestic Revenue Mobilization; and Strengthening the Quality of Public Service Delivery to Facilitate Private Sector Investment.

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Court awards payment moved from AG chambers to Ministry

Gerald Businge — Wed, 27 Apr 2016 08:49:24 +0000

Government has decided to relocate the payment of court awards from Attorney general Chambers to Ministry of Finance. This is in an effort to clear all outstanding court awards. State Minister of Finance in charge of planning David Bahati while appearing before the Committee of Finance said that 425 billion shillings is a huge bill and Government is negotiating with stake holders to see that it’s reduced. He said the issue of transferring the funds from attorney general chambers is intended to clear court awards debt in better possible ways.

Government has allocated only 9 billion shillings for clearing court awards in this financial year 2016/17 and a shortfall of 416 billion shillings is remaining.

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Minister calls for special audit on malaria impact

Isaac Senabulya — Mon, 25 Apr 2016 14:48:48 +0000

The health minister Elioda Tumwesigye is now calling for a special economic audit from experts on the impact of malaria to the country’s economy in the current state as well as the strategies used to combat the disease. Speaking at the official opening of the world malaria day scientific colloquium today in Kampala, Hon. Elioda says malaria is consuming a huge sum of money from the ministry national budget as well as the citizen who always visit health centers for treatment.

Tumwesigye also mentions that the current strategies used should be revisited to see whether they can make changes or re-enforce them with new ones.

The conference has brought together experts in the malaria field to brain storm on what can be done to fully scale down the swelling malaria numbers in the country as the country prepares to join the rest of the world to mark the world malaria day on 25^th April with the national events to be held in the northern district of Lira .

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Vacant post in Judicial commission halts proceedings

Isaac Senabulya — Tue, 29 Mar 2016 15:39:02 +0000

Justice James Ogola

Judicial service commission budget is halted over absence of a substantive head of the Judicial service commission. The legal and parliamentary affairs committee chaired by Stephen Tashobya declined to scrutinize the proposed budgetary for judicial service commission unless the post of chairman in filed. The move comes at the time when the term for the previous chairman Justice James Ogola had just expired leaving the post vacant.
The committee chairman Steven Tashobya said that they will not commit government money in a commission that cannot execute its obligations legally. While appearing before this committee, the minister for justice and constitutional affairs Kahinda Otafiire said that the search for the chairman is ongoing and the post is likely to be filled in two weeks from now.

Meanwhile that ministry of public service is still trapped into a funding gap of close to 1.03 billion shillings meant to pay emoluments for former leaders. Some of the former leaders entitled to this money include former presidents, former vice presidents and prime ministers. While appearing before the parliamentary public service and local government committee, the permanent Secretary Catherine Bitaralwate said that in this 2016/2017 no formal communication has been made to this effect. She explained that the ministry is now yet to face the challenge of these leaders coming for their money yet no single cent has been allocated for this purposes from ministry of finance. Bitaralwate called for the committee to push the ministry to provide them with this money to benefit the intended beneficiaries.

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8.5bn needed to purchase bicycles for village chairpersons in 59 districts.

Isaac Senabulya — Wed, 23 Dec 2015 07:51:19 +0000

Members of parliament say that the ministry of finance must find funds for purchase bicycles for village local council chairpersons who did not receive them in 59 districts in the country. MPs say that it’s a big embarrassment for local council chairpersons not to be given their bicycles in 59 districts yet their fellow chairpersons in 52 districts received them. The chairperson of the parliamentary committee on public service and local government who is also the woman mp for Zombo district MP Kwiyucwiny Grace Freedom says that the budget committee should find funds and allocate for the purchase of these bicycles.

The MP for Kajara county Stephen Tashobya says that village LC chairpersons should get their bicycles before their term of office expires. However the woman MP for Agago district Franca Akello says that parliament should examine whether the right village LC chairpersons in the 52 districts purported to have received bicycles got them because some bicycles could have been taken by people who are not Village chairpersons since even there could be a possibility that some had died by the time of distribution of the bicycles.

8.5 billion shillings is required to purchase bicycles for village chairpersons in the 59 districts.

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Bitekyerezo asks for 1 trillion shs for Health Ministry

Isaac Senabulya — Wed, 23 Dec 2015 07:40:29 +0000

Dr. Medard Bitekyerezo

The Ministry of Health wants over 1 trillion shillings for the Next Financial Year 2016/17 to cater for the swelling needs and gaps in the Health Sector. Among the issues to be catered for is a salary of the Health Workers, Uniforms for all Health Workers, Automatic recruitment of New Health workers, and increment of Budget for Primary Health workers, provision of ARVs to test and Treatment of People living with HIV/AIDS.

The Committee Chairperson for Health Mbarara Municipality MP Dr. Medard Bitekyerezo while appearing before the Budget committee chaired by Bulambuli County Wamidimi Wamakuyu to present the health ministry budget said that parliament must find all the funds required by this ministry for effective health service delivery. He says at least 2 billion shillings should be allocated for health workers uniforms so that each has two pairs to curb the baby theft, quack doctors, and bribes for medical services. He adds it will be very easy to identify the health workers with their Name tags pinned on the uniforms.

The committee also recommends that the Basic Ambulance system be put in place to help rural poor who die due to lack of transport, mostly the pregnant mothers. Dr. Bitekyerezo says 1 Billion shillings should be allocated to purchase the ambulances to cater for the emergencies. He says the ambulance system is one of the unfunded priorities in ministry of Health.

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Parliament rejects proposal to appropriate funds for PIBID

Isaac Senabulya — Wed, 23 Dec 2015 07:29:09 +0000

The Parliamentary Budget Committee chaired by Bulambuli County MP Wamakuyu Mudimi has rejected the proposal of the Finance committee to appropriate funds for the Presidential Initiatives on Banana industrial development (PIBID). The Chairperson of the finance committee Robert Kasule Sebunya had been appearing before the Budget committee which is scrutinizing the budget requesting MPs on the budget committee to approve the funds for this initiative to cater for staff payment and other activities.

This is the second time parliament is suspending the funds on the presidential initiatives on Banana Industrial development; Last Financial year 2014/15 the budget committees refused to approve sh10b, which the Government had allocated to the banana initiative in the budget. The committee chaired by Ntenjeru north county’s Amos Lugolobi noted with strong concern that the patent rights of PIBID are registered in the individual names of the executive director yet the initiative is 100% funded from the taxpayers’ money. The MPs says before allocating another fund all the requirements ranging from administrative issues this should be sorted out before any money is approved.

The Chairperson of Finance Committee also, Kyadondo North MP Robert Kasule Sebunya, says that members of parliament should reconsider their position over this project and approve the fund to help on the banana industry.

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MPs demand trillion shillings for agriculture sector

Isaac Senabulya — Wed, 21 Oct 2015 10:58:27 +0000

Members of parliament under the Uganda Parliamentarians Forum on Food Security, Population and Development have demanded a trillion shillings budget for the agriculture sector. Speaking to journalists at parliament the secretary General for this forum and MP for Kakuto county, Mathias Kasamba, said that its time for the government to find a big budget for agriculture sector since there is much investment that has been done in key sectors.

Kasamba said that each person should have a capacity to feed himself or herself by having enough food at the homestead instead of waiting to be fed. He said that government should have addition of new agricultural technologies to boost food production. Kasamba said that Uganda is still having food deficit despite some government intervention, calling for the people to have shared responsibility of growing enough food for local consumption and export.

The member of parliament for Kyadondo north, Kasule Sebunya, said that government should change its policy and directly involve in agriculture production instead of leaving the sector under private hands.

The speaker of parliament Rebecca Kadaga also challenged member countries of the Inter Parliamentary Union to set aside a contingency fund to cater for migrants seeking refuge in the various countries. Kadaga said that when migrants move in large numbers they have an impact on the state of the environment and also put pressure on the local facilities, the local leadership and the local communities of the places in which they land.

Kadaga was addressing the Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU) Assembly currently meeting in Geneva, on the Assembly theme: The moral and economic imperative for fairer, smarter and more humane migration. She said that its time for the countries to put into place contingency funds to cater for the possibility of housing, feeding and settling migrants in large numbers.

The speaker also complained about the bulk of the profits repatriated to the investor’s countries and not leaving much in the local country. She said It is important that the developed countries invest in infrastructure and industries to create jobs in the less developed countries.

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