New platform created to assess gov’t performance

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT  | A new platform called the APEX to be chaired by the President has been mooted to be the topmost stage to carry out oversight of government programes performance.

The platform will be made up of what has been described as the big four government entities – National Planning Authority, Ministry of Finance, Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), and the Office of the President (OP). APEX is used to mean something on top.

According to Vincent Tumusiime, the director of the social and economic in the Office of the President, the platform would act like a sub-cabinet. The platform is to be chaired by the President himself.

There is currently no instrument creating this platform, but according to Tumusiime, the framework has been approved at cabinet. He said they will hold the first APEX in March 2020 and the focus will be on agriculture.

It is still not certain how often the APEX will meet in a year or how many members it will have.

At a meeting at Serena hotel on Wednesday, the idea drew mixed reactions from the audience with some technocrats saying it would be a more of a duplication of existing platforms.

Ashaba Hanington, an economist at Ministry of Finance, said there was need to tread with care to ensure that there is value that this platform will add to what has been there.

He revealed that there is already a proposal on the funding of the platform, requiring between 7bn to 10 billion shillings extra cost on the taxpayer.

He said while they support it as a complementary effort, it should be well-thought-out not to appear that every problem the country has, something has to be created to cure it.

Charles Illukor, the Kumi County Member of Parliament, said this should not be another platform where they will write reports to gather dust.

Dr Joseph Muvawala, the executive director of National Planning Authority, supported the idea, saying the idea of a credible platform to coordinate government business has been lacking.

He said OPM can still do its work of monitoring and evaluation while the Apex does the oversight. He said the fact that it will be chaired by the president gives it a constitutional mandate for oversight.

Muvawala said the OPM does monitoring but has no powers to sack an incompetent official. He said the APEX will be telling the president, the appointing authority, to sack the incompetent ones.

There is already much going in terms of reporting to the president. Platforms like the presidential round tables on different issues including tourism, investment have been doing so.

It is a wait and see on whether this new platform will add value. Other oversight agencies like the auditor general and parliament already make different reports with recommendations to the executive, whose head is the president.

Some of these recommendations lie unattended to.

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URN