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Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Parliament has approved 39.6 trillion shillings budget estimates for the coming financial year 2020/2021.
The approval during the sitting chaired by Deputy Speaker Jacob Oulanyah on Thursday followed the adoption of the Budget Committee report that recommended the passing of the National Budget Framework Paper for the financial year 2020/2021.
However, the committee Vice Chairperson Patrick Isiagi warned that additional resources are to be mobilized by government on top of the approved 39.6 trillion proposed budget before the final budget is finalized in May 2020.
Isiagi said that this means that the resource envelope is to be revised upwards during parliament’s consideration of the final budget.
Besides the required funding for the coming 2021 general elections, Deputy Speaker Jacob Oulanyah noted that the Ministry of Finance is to mobilize additional revenues to bridge the funding gap under Security, new cities, salary enhancement for university professors and scientific cadres in research institutions and others.
But the Opposition led by Butambala County MP Muhammad Kivumbi contested the revision of the budget ceiling without providing an estimate of how much the budget will amount to. He said that there is need for consistency between the Budget Framework Paper with the final budget document.
However, Oulanyah ruled out Muwanga’s argument saying that it would hold water in the old budget practice when parliament used to approve the budget after the Minister of Finance presenting it to the Nation.
Following the argument, the Minister for Planning David Bahati insisted that the budget ceiling has to be revised due to the funding pressures that parliament had recommended additional funding. He says that the Education Sector alone requires additional funding of Shillings 50 billion for only one item of improving staffing levels.
According to the approved Budget Framework Paper, the National Budget is projected to reduce by 2 percent from the current 2019/2020 budget of Shillings 40.488 trillion to 39.641 trillion in the financial year 2020/2021. The reduction in resource inflow is mainly attributed to a reduction in the projected external financing.
The tax revenue is projected to increase from Shillings 18.82 trillion in the current financial year to Shillings 20.04 trillion.
In terms of Sectorial allocation, the Works and Transport Sector accounts for the largest Sectorial allocation of Shillings 5.952 trillion (15.1 percent), followed by Education at 3.28 trillion (8.3 percent), Energy 2.46 trillion (6.3 percent) and Health 1.55 trillion (3.9 percent) of the total Sectorial allocation.
The least allocated sector in the budget is Information Communication, Technology-ICT and National Guidance Sector accorded 136.2 billion (0.3 percent) of the National Budget.
The sector with the largest proposed increment is Water and Environment Sector with Shillings 258.2 billion.
The sector priorities for the coming financial year 2020/2021 include increasing production and productivity in the productive sectors of the economy, enhancing private sector competitiveness, consolidation and increasing of the infrastructure stock, improving social service provision and regional equity, improving the effectiveness of governance and Maintaining peace and security and others.
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