Kampala, 29th May 2017 – Figures, data and statistics that have bored some MPs for most part of the closing Financial Year nears end with the scheduled passing of the Appropriation Bill 2017, on Tuesday next week.
The Budget Committee, which was deserted by most members, save for a handful of common faces, are putting ink on paper to prepare the final appropriations, providing financial means to execute the work of government.
Now pose for a mixed bag of shock and hope, as has been sufficiently reported, the Budget will after all majorly fund recurrent expenditure.
Shs17.4 trillion will cater for recurrent expenditure while Shs11.5 trillion will service development expenditure, a chunk of which will be for infrastructure under Uganda National Roads Authority.
In his response to government’s Budget Framework Paper, Shadow Finance minister Anthony Akol (FDC, Kilak North) attributed the decline in economic growth to “prioritisation and bulk financing of support sectors other than productive sectors, which has constrained Uganda’s import substitution potential and positioned her as a transit country due to reduced cost of importation”.
With growing unemployment and youth destitution, MPs should worry themselves about the expenditure driven Budget against development.
Development Budget
Most of the development Budget is to finance road construction and multitude of infrastructural projects like the Standard Gauge Railway, which may not readily translate into jobs for the street dwelling, jobless youth.
Relatedly, the growing debt crisis continues to stare the country in the face, a concern that bothered the Budget Committee at its very last meeting.
“In my view, it is already unsustainable because we cannot completely finance our own Budget, the cumulative debt is suffocating this country,” lamented Mr Amos Lugoloobi (NRM, Ntenjeru North), the committee chairperson.
Presenting the Finance Committee’s report, chairperson Henry Ariganyira (NRM, Rubanda East), told MPs that the much dreaded domestic borrowing will increase, despite a previous indication in the Budget Framework Paper that it was to decline going forward.
“Our priorities are increasing and we continue to make allocations, so as long as we appropriate, there will be domestic borrowing,” he told the legislators.
He was responding to Nakasongola Woman MP Margaret Komuhangi, who made a terse proposal to have Finance ministry officials sanctioned over the rising national debt.
She was reminded, however, that it was a collective guilt, shared by Parliament and leaders across board, whose signatures seal borrowing deals with international financial institutions.
Mr Akol noted the rise in domestic borrowing, and suggested that in the next Financial Year, it will offer a great impediment to economic growth.
“Although it is indicated that to rebound the economy in FY 2017-2018, government was to scale down borrowing but to the contrary is projected to increase by 45 percent from the current Shs5.3 trillion to Shs7.7 trillion,” read the alternative Budget Framework Paper.
Credit: By Ibrahim A. Manzil / The Monitor
