Mpuuga said that it is the opposition's duty to deeply study the prepositions of the government, put some level of imagination and perspective on them and be able to produce alternatives.
The Opposition in Parliament has decided to
draft an alternative national budget contrary to the long-standing practice of
responding to the government’s proposals tabled before parliament. Mathias Mpuuga, the Leader of the Opposition
revealed the move while opening a three-day retreat for members of the
Shadow Cabinet at the Imperial Golf View Hotel, Entebbe.
The Opposition plans to
develop an alternative national budget for the next financial year 2023/2024 during their retreat and their priorities will be unveiled to the country in April.
According to
Mpuuga, the new opposition approach to the budgeting process is in line with
their mandate of keeping the government in check and avoiding recycling proposals.
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This comes at a time when sectoral
committees in parliament are scrutinizing budget estimates under the
National Budget Framework Paper tabled before parliament by Finance Minister
Matia Kasaija on December 23rd, 2023.
According to the Public Finance
Management Act, parliament is expected to debate and approve the Budget
Framework Paper by February 1st, 2023. Mpuuga said that it is the opposition's duty to
deeply study the prepositions of the government, put some level of imagination
and perspective on them and be able to produce alternatives.
“We are not supposed to clean up their mess, our
job is to offer citizens a cleaner and better alternative," he said. Mpuuga emphasized that their mandate is to
produce alternatives but not to support, clarify, and not in any way to
recommend, and patch up government policies.
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The Nyendo-Mukungwe MP said that for the first
time, they are going to have the Opposition Budget day to present to the
country their perspectives on the utilization of the national envelope.
"You are aware, we have presented our views
on the management, and mobilization of taxes. We presented our alternative charter
of fiscal responsibility and this bears our consideration of how resources
should be mobilized from where and how, including external resources,” Mpuuga
explained.
He said that on the planned Opposition Budget
day, different shadow ministers will make presentations to Ugandans. Mpuuga says that the opposition views presented
in the past policy statements are so compressed that sometimes they are
misunderstood, misconstrued, and misrepresented.
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The proposed budget for the next financial year
2023/2024 was developed under program-based budgeting as per the National
Development Programme (NDP III). The national budget for the next financial year 2023/2024 is
projected at 49.98 trillion, compared to 48.13 trillion for the current
financial year 2022/2023.
The proposed 49.98 trillion Shillings budget will be
financed through domestic revenue equivalent to 28.83 trillion, budget support
amounting to 2.491 trillion, domestic borrowing of 1.585 trillion, external
project support worth 8.04 trillion, domestic refinancing of 8.798 trillion,
and local revenue for local government (AIA) of 238.5 billion Shillings.
While presenting the estimates to the Budget Committee last
week, Henry Musasizi, the Minister of State for Finance said that the
budget was prepared in a challenging environment occasioned by global and
national shocks, which include high inflation, tightening financial conditions in
most regions, Russia-Ukraine Conflict, and the lingering negative effects of
the COVID-19 pandemic.
He said that these challenges have resulted in a rise of
public debt and its servicing costs and that to adapt to this environment, the
projected discretionary resource envelope for the next Financial Year budget
has been reduced by 2.54 trillion from 25.402 trillion in the current financial year
2022/2023 to 22.86 trillion.
With the reduced resource envelope, Musasizi said
that the government has provided for key priorities including starting the
construction of the Standard Gauge Railway and finalization of the
rehabilitation of the Meter Gauge Railway under the Integrated Transport
program (4.65 trillion); investing in small-scale solar powered irrigation as
well as addressing climate change and food security under Agro
Industrialization Programme (1.499 trillion) and others.
The other priorities are constructing power
service stations and transmission lines under the Sustainable Energy
Development program (1.2 trillion) and capitalization of Uganda
Development Bank -UDB and Uganda Development Corporation- UDC to continue
supporting private sector development, recovery, and economic transformation
under the Private Sector Development (1.798 trillion).
The Budget theme has been maintained as “Full Monetization of
the Ugandan Economy through Commercial Agriculture, Industrialization,
Expanding and Broadening Services, Digital Transformation and, Market Access”.
