The committee chairperson Jesica Ababiku moved the motion amidst strong opposition from several MPs who are against passing the budget of the presidency minus facilitating ISO.

This was after Mbayo told the committee that only 19 billion out of ISO’s desired annual budget of 280billion shillings has been approved for 2018/19.nmn

Mbayo asked the committee to  approve  the available  budget for the office of the president because most of the issues they raised are beyond her control like the appointment of ten Residential District Commissioners in the newly created districts or those that will be created next financial year.

Earlier, the parliamentary presidential committee threatened not to pass the budget framework paper for the office of the president.

Committee members say that if the minister Esther Mbayo fails to cut budgets of other departments and increase funding to the Internal Security Organization (ISO) then they will not approve the entire budget of the office of the presidency.

MPS who included makindye east mp Kasozi Ibrahim, kassanda Simeo Nsubuga ,Bukanga county mp Steven Kangwagye pleaded with other committee members  against passing the framework paper without providing for ISO to procure transport means for its officers.

 Mbayo told the committee that ISO needs 22.2 billion shillings to buy 134 motor vehicles and 17.8 billion shillings to procure 1,443 motor cycles but only 482 million shillings was allocated in financial year 2017/18.

The MPs supported the remarks of the minister for security Gen. Henry Tumukunde who said that without security, nothing political, economic and social will be successful.

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Map showing Albertine Graben oil fields in Uganda

The Prime Minister Dr Ruhakana Rugunda has called upon investors and other stakeholders in the oil and gas sector to continue working together closely to expedite the development of the oil and gas sector in the country. The Premier made the remarks at the joint meeting of the policy coordination committee and the oil and gas technical working group to review progress on the implementation of the Presidential Investors’ round table phase four at the office of the President.

The Prime Minister Dr Rugunda called the meeting to discuss key issues that emerged from the review meeting held at State House Entebbe in March this year. Some of these issues include issuance of petroleum production licences to licenced oil companies as well as the legal and policy framework on local content for the oil and gas sector.

The oil companies argue that they are entitled to full blocks not less than five minutes by five minutes grids wherever they have made a petroleum discovery. They also want areas crossing exploration boundaries into unlicensed areas to be licenced as one unit by adding them to the discovery made. A total of 8 applications for issuance of production licences by Total and Tullow have been submitted to government.

According to the Minister for Energy and Mineral Development, Eng. Irene Muloni, the Attorney General has guided that part of a block will be issued to cover extent of discovery as defined by appraisal.

Also discoveries crossing exploration boundaries where there is pressure communication between discoveries made by two licenced companies on either side will be licenced to the two parties through unitization. Four sets of regulations under general, health safety and environment, metering of petroleum and national content have been developed under the Petroleum Exploration, Development and Production Act 2013.

The Chairman of the oil and gas technical working group, Herman Kasekende thanked Government for resolving the issue of value added tax on investments and also applauded Government for addressing the issue of infrastructure in the Albertine graben.

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The Office of the President has now invited sealed bids from eligible bidders for the provision of the works described above and the bidding will be conducted in accordance with the Open Domestic Bidding procedures contained in the Government of Uganda’s Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Act, 2003, and are open to all bidders from eligible source countries. A source which is well conversant with statehouse issues has told us that interested eligible bidders may obtain further information from The Office of the President and inspect the bidding documents from the same office. A complete set of Bidding Documents in English may be purchased by interested bidders on the submission of a written application to the same office and upon payment of a nonrefundable fee of 200,000/= per lot. The method of payment is through a URA bank payment advice form.

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