Government urged to adopt financial discipline

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Civil groups say government should reduce its supplementary budgets to channel money in priority areas.

 By Ismail Ladu , Monday, June 18  2012

As the Budget Day excitement ebbs, the pressure is now on government to maintain financial discipline.
Civil society organisations and the private sector are pressing for assurances that would be a stop to repeated supplementary budget requests. “All that is left now is for government to channel the resources in productive areas and not consumption. We hope to see less and less supplementary budget in areas that do not create wealth,” Private Sector Foundation (PSFU) executive director Gideon Badagawa told Daily Monitor in an interview at the weekend.

In a post-budget luncheon organised by the private sector on Friday in Kampala, Mr Richard Kaijuka, a businessman and former Minister of Energy, asked for assurances from Finance Minister Maria Kiwanuka that there would not be any requests for supplementary budgets. 

Senior programme director for Forum for Women in Democracy Julius Mukunda said they are concerned about government budget indiscipline which affects resources that would have been channeled to agriculture, health and education.

Budget trend
A civil society press statement issued last week noted that the trend of supplementary budget requests has been on a steady increase from 4 per cent in 2008/09 to 7.2 per cent in 2009/10 and to 27.7 per cent in 2010/11. 

 “This trend is eroding the credibility of the budgeting process,” reads in part the CSO statement. “A significant portion of the amounts requested for in supplementary budgets is spent on unproductive sectors. For instance, money requested for the President to give donations (Shs6.1b), and funds spent on entertainment (Shs3.1b) – to the detriment of nodding disease victims and teachers, the statement reads.

It adds: “This portray a government that cares only for its own comfort, but not about the plight of its citizens.” Defence ministry is among sectors with the highest supplementary budget.
iladu@ug.nationalmedia.com

E-mail author on  iladu@ug.nationalmedia.com

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