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Gulu, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Gulu district local government has proposed a draft budget of 31 billion shillings for the 2021/2022 financial year.
The draft budget was passed on Tuesday morning from Gulu district council hall by Martin Ojara Mapenduzi, the outgoing Gulu district chairman during the full council meeting.
Out of the total 31,064,292,000 shillings, Education and Sports department takes the lion’s share of 13,401,589,000 shillings representing 43.1 percent, followed by Administration department that will get 7,293,821,000 shillings representing 23.5 percent.
Natural Resources Management and Trade, Industry and Local development got the least budget allocation of 288,072,000 and 121,433,000 shillings, representing 0.9 and 0.4 percent respectively.
Others are Health department with 4,000,479,000 shillings, Production and Marketing with 1,837,431,000 shillings, Roads and Engineering with 1,233,362,000 shillings and Water Department with 1,001,870,000 shillings, among others.
Martin Ojara Mapenduzi, the outgoing Gulu district chairman says the proposed budget has taken into consideration the vision 2040 of the National Development Plan whose goal is to increase household income and improve quality of life and the District Development Plan 2021/2022 -2024/2025.
According to Ojara, Gulu district’s strategic objectives for financial year 2021/2022 are to provide good governance, ensure accountability and transparent local government in the management of service delivery, to ensure households have stable income and sustainable food security, and to provide socio-economic infrastructure for development among others.
The proposed budget of the 31 billion shillings for the 2021/2022 financial year for Gulu is lower than the one for financial year 2020/2021 which was 42,366,440,000 shillings.
Lillian Stella Lallam, the LC V for Awach, Patiko and Palaro sub counties in Gulu told URN in an interview that the proposed budget is too meager for the district considering the fact that the district headquarters is shifting from Gulu town to Awach sub county and that priority should be given to important departments.
Caesar Akena, the Gulu District Education Officer whose department took the lion’s share of the budget says they shall be able to pay teachers wages and build more classrooms.
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