MPs should reject the Shs 92bnSupplementrary Budget request by State House
State House yesterday asked MPs to approve Shs92 billion in more funding for the Presidency. The request was submitted to parliament yesterday by Junior Finance Minister Fred Omach requesting for shs81.8bn under its recurrent expenditure and another shs 10.1 bn for development activities swelling its budget by 38%.
The Speaker passed it to the Parliamentary Budget Committee for scrutiny and consideration. As mandated by the constitution, the Executive arm of Government should exercise near absolute control over the way national budget resources are appropriated and utilized. However, in the recent past Parliament which is supposed to be the guarantor of public interest with regard to public funds has acted as a spectator or sometimes as an accomplice in budget abuses. This time all eyes are on Parliament and it is still unclear whether the 9th House will have the bravery to say ’NO’ taking into consideration that their own integrity and reputation is in question after approving the previous supplementary budgets and not to forget that they are reported to have secretively received Shs103 million to purchase luxury vehicles at time when Ugandans are facing serious economic challenges. Although civil society leaders and other sections of society have openly condemned the act and publicly asked them to return this money to cater for other pressing needs like increasing teacher’s, Civil servants, and medical workers’ salaries, poor health conditions and irregular power supply the MPs have remained adamant and defensive over the issue.
Just five months ago, the 9th Parliament approved another additional Shs66.6 billion for State House, if they approve the Shs 92bn then the State House budget will swell up to more than Shs158.6 billion— more than twice the 2011/12 Budget for Mulago National Referral Hospital. Towards the 2011 general elections, another supplementary budget totaling to shs 600bn was passed by the 8th parliament and of that Shs 79bn was for State House. This money would meet the Shs75 billion required to answer teachers’ demands for a 100 per cent salary increment. Not forgetting that in the recent past Ministry of health has been struggling to get funds for mitigating the nodding disease epidemic and according to Dr. Nduhura, the initial funding of Shs100 million was obtained from re-allocations within the Ministry of Health budget. This reallocation means another area within ministry of health that has been deprived of its funding.
In 2011 Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWODE) in collaboration with the Civil Society Budget Advocacy Group condemned the passing of supplementary budget stating that, realignment of budget priorities without ensuring appropriate checks and balances over the budget between the Executive and the Parliament does not yield meaningful results. Supplementary Expenditures are perceived as a mechanism for diverting resources away from agreed priorities in the National Development Plan. A look at the supplementary budget indicates that most of the expenditures listed are not unforeseen and should have been budgeted for at the time of preparing the 2011/12 budget. Furthermore, this supplementary budget is not in favor of the service delivery sectors.
The budget is meant to cater for the following:
Expenses Amount (Shs)
Insurance 644.7bn
Donations 11.6b
President’s inland travel 6bn
Staff training 1.6bn
Classified items 3.5bn
Travel abroad 2.8 bn
Allowances 2.4bn
Maintaining presidential jet 2.3bn
Welfare and entertainment 2 bn Welfare 1.4b
Special meals and drinks 413.9m
Medical and vet 41.3m
Print and photocopying 25.5m
Newspapers 4.8m
The Speaker passed it to the Parliamentary Budget Committee for scrutiny and consideration. As mandated by the constitution, the Executive arm of Government should exercise near absolute control over the way national budget resources are appropriated and utilized. However, in the recent past Parliament which is supposed to be the guarantor of public interest with regard to public funds has acted as a spectator or sometimes as an accomplice in budget abuses. This time all eyes are on Parliament and it is still unclear whether the 9th House will have the bravery to say ’NO’ taking into consideration that their own integrity and reputation is in question after approving the previous supplementary budgets and not to forget that they are reported to have secretively received Shs103 million to purchase luxury vehicles at time when Ugandans are facing serious economic challenges. Although civil society leaders and other sections of society have openly condemned the act and publicly asked them to return this money to cater for other pressing needs like increasing teacher’s, Civil servants, and medical workers’ salaries, poor health conditions and irregular power supply the MPs have remained adamant and defensive over the issue.
Just five months ago, the 9th Parliament approved another additional Shs66.6 billion for State House, if they approve the Shs 92bn then the State House budget will swell up to more than Shs158.6 billion— more than twice the 2011/12 Budget for Mulago National Referral Hospital. Towards the 2011 general elections, another supplementary budget totaling to shs 600bn was passed by the 8th parliament and of that Shs 79bn was for State House. This money would meet the Shs75 billion required to answer teachers’ demands for a 100 per cent salary increment. Not forgetting that in the recent past Ministry of health has been struggling to get funds for mitigating the nodding disease epidemic and according to Dr. Nduhura, the initial funding of Shs100 million was obtained from re-allocations within the Ministry of Health budget. This reallocation means another area within ministry of health that has been deprived of its funding.
In 2011 Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWODE) in collaboration with the Civil Society Budget Advocacy Group condemned the passing of supplementary budget stating that, realignment of budget priorities without ensuring appropriate checks and balances over the budget between the Executive and the Parliament does not yield meaningful results. Supplementary Expenditures are perceived as a mechanism for diverting resources away from agreed priorities in the National Development Plan. A look at the supplementary budget indicates that most of the expenditures listed are not unforeseen and should have been budgeted for at the time of preparing the 2011/12 budget. Furthermore, this supplementary budget is not in favor of the service delivery sectors.
The budget is meant to cater for the following:
Expenses Amount (Shs)
Insurance 644.7bn
Donations 11.6b
President’s inland travel 6bn
Staff training 1.6bn
Classified items 3.5bn
Travel abroad 2.8 bn
Allowances 2.4bn
Maintaining presidential jet 2.3bn
Welfare and entertainment 2 bn Welfare 1.4b
Special meals and drinks 413.9m
Medical and vet 41.3m
Print and photocopying 25.5m
Newspapers 4.8m
Story by: Carol Namagembe
Program Officer Communications
Forum for Women in Democracy
PRESIDENTIAL REQUEST FOR A SUPPLEMENTARY BUDGET VISA VIE WAKISO HEALTH BUDGET.
ReplyDeleteAll members of parliament should stand at their knees putting into consideration the way how health centers are in Uganda, the situation here in WAKISO district calls for even the district to get an equalization grant for it to have all girls in schools, you may wonder that the best schools are in wakiso district but the supplies you may get is that the best students are not born in wakiso district as they only come to have town education I’m bringing this to draw you a picture to the situation which limits girls to attend school, and the number of live births in wakiso, when you get to wakiso school reports as per December performance you will find that there over 34 schools with no toilets and the report stipulates it that the schools are in a big health problem if the toilets are not constructed, when you get to health centers the district has less than 6 doctors operating in the health centre IVs which it has, and still when it comes to health centre IIIs you find that they cannot employee the number of staff in these centers to capacity as the funds for salaries are insufficient , wakiso district has the lowest number of health center IIs compared to the number of parishes it has this means more funding in maternal health is still a requirement , let’s look at wakiso EPI center which is operating in wakiso sub county it’s the only health center III in the sub county but it has only one midwife who attends to all maternal health issues in the center. the center receives over 700 pregnant mothers a month, here I request the Hon. member of parliament when trying to pass this supplement ally budget they should ask Rosemary Sseninde to give her constituency maternal health situation before thinking about the presidential supplementary budget
Good comments Muyimbwa in order for us to be proactive, I propose that the people of Wakiso especially the women in Wakiso who are most affected by these budget indiscipline should petition their Hon. MP requesting her to present the status of their district and request that part of this money be reallocated to improve the health situation of districts wakiso inclusive. At national level civil society budget advocacy group is also petitioning the MPs.
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