The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The government has secured a supplementary expenditure request worth 695.5 billion Shillings for the current financial year 2020/2021. The expenditure was approved by Parliament last evening, shortly before the tenth parliament closed its business.
A big chunk of the money (481 billion Shillings) is going to the Uganda National Oil Company for its portion of equity investment into the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) Ltd for the construction of the crude oil pipeline for transporting Uganda’s crude oil from Hoima to the Port of Tanga in Tanzania to enable access to international markets.
The others are 25 billion Shillings which will go to State House to cater for classified expenditure and 3.35 billion Shillings to cater for operational expenses at the secretariat of the project for the Presidential Scientific Initiative on Epidemics (PRESIDE), and 730 million Shillings to complete the Surgical Complex at Mbale Regional Referral Hospital.
At least 101.9 billion Shillings will cater for External Financing of three projects including the Hoima-Wanseko Road Project, Kampala-Northern Bypass Project and the Mbale-Bubulo-Lwakhakha Project, and others.
The approval followed a debate on a report of the Budget Committee which recommended that the supplementary request is approved. Parliament has previously approved requests totalling 4.073 trillion Shillings since October 2020. Amos Lugoloobi, the Budget Committee Chairperson says that funding of this Supplementary Schedule will be financed through additional revenue, domestic borrowing and external financing.
Dokolo Woman MP Cecilia Ogwal together with Butambala County MP Muwanga Kivumbi had authored a minority report in which they recommended that parliament rejects the supplementary request.
“The Ministry of Finance indicated that they intend to finance the supplementary through domestic borrowing and proceeded to do the same through the committee of National Economy to establish the source of funding. As of now, the committee of National Economy has not approved this borrowing, hence no source of funding,” said Ogwal.
She recommended that the supplementary request is rejected until a time when the National Economy committee provides clarity on the source of funding.
David Bahati, the Minister of State for Planning clarified that the source of funding for the supplementary budget had been approved already by the National Economy committee.
The Opposition minority report was rejected after MPs approved the main committee report hence approving the supplementary budget.
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