The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Government has tabled a supplementary budget request of Shillings 201 billion in parliamentary approval. The money is meant to fund wage shortfalls under various central and local government votes.
David Bahati, the Minister of State for Planning tabled the request before parliament.
A huge chunk of the money is for central government votes including the Office of the President Shillings 1.4 billion, judiciary Shillings 9.4 billion, Financial Intelligence Authority Shillings 4.4 billion and Kampala Capital City Authority-KCCA Shillings 2.4billion.
The other beneficiaries are Makerere University, Soroti University, Lira University, Kawempe National Referral Hospital and Uganda Blood Transfusion Services. The remaining Shillings 91 billion is for local government votes including among others Kitagwenda, Kalaki, Karenga and Mukono districts and municipal councils such as Entebbe, Kotido and Masindi.
The supplementary request of Shillings 201 billion is provided for in the Addendum to Supplementary Schedule No.2 for the financial year 2019/2020 amounting to Shillings 750.2 billion. Shillings 549 billion out of the Shillings 750.2 billion has already been spent under the 3 percent legal limit while Shillings 201 billion requires prior parliamentary approval before it is spent.
On February 28th, 2020, the Finance Ministry tabled Supplementary Schedule No.2 for financial year 2019/2020 amounting to Shillings 662.3 billion. As a result of the addendum, government has so far tabled a total of Shillings 1.4 trillion in supplementary expenditures and funding.
The Runinda County MP, Mugabe Kahonda noted that Mitooma district has been left out, saying its councilors need their ex-gratia paid. The Speaker, Rebecca Kadaga who presided over the plenary sitting asked Kahonda to present his concerns to the Budget Committee, which will scrutinize the addendum to the Supplementary Schedule.
The Budget Committee will scrutinise the expenditures and requests and determine whether they are legal or illegal. The Public Finance Management Act, 2015 provides that supplementary budgets are supposed to cater for expenditures that cannot be postponed to the next financial year and expenditure that was not foreseeable at the time of preparing the national budget.
The Act also provides that any expenditure which is not spent according to the law results in the loss of public funds.
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