From which account will the supplementary budget be drawn?

 

Igara East MP Michael Mawanda and ex-minister Isaac Musumba, who were arrested in the Indian city of Mumbai. FILE PHOTOS  

By Juliet Akello

In Summary

With the expectation of increasing funds from oil resources, such unrealistic supplementary budgets are only a signal of how public resources will be managed.

Uganda is still chocking and struggling to exercise prudent public expenditure, even with the Financial Management and Accountability Programme managed by the Ministry of Finance. Effective public financial management and accountability are essential to improving the quality of public service outcomes, decision making and to ensure prudent resource allocation. Uganda is far from achieving this given the unplanned, lavish expenditure government finds herself in which distorts national cash flow.

State House is seeking for the approval of a supplementary budget worth Shs138 billion, which is more than twice their approved budget in September last year of Shs66.1 billion. This then reflects on the competence of the budget managers in a specific institution. One-and-a-half months to the end of a financial year for such a huge supplementary budget makes little economic sense when districts receive meager resources for service delivery. This has become habitual to the extent that responsible officers/institutions have lost integrity and shame in dragging Uganda’s development into a bottomless pit, undefined. In the eyes of any donor, financial indiscipline coupled with corruption is eroding Uganda’s development – two steps forward, five steps backwards.

With the expectation of increasing funds from oil resources, such unrealistic supplementary budgets are only a signal of how public resources will be managed. The government has nakedly shown her inability in prudently and accountably managing public funds and, therefore, can she institute a secretariat comprising of public servants and technical private partners like Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) that will jointly provide an advisory and coordinating role in planning, budgeting, financial management and accountability? This is working very well in the Philippines. Both parties would have an opportunity to promote impartial decision making and collaborating to achieve quality service delivery. The partnership would dispel the myths about CSOs for “witch-hunting” government actions but rather create synergy with government and enhance accountability of public officials.

Other alternatives for PFM to be explored are private sector funds management by setting up a development/investment bank to lend money to citizens at reasonable rates, an agricultural oil bank to lend to farmers to boost their production, investment in universal health care systems, scholarships for technical skills at tertiary level and pension fund scheme for the elderly where they are the shareholders. Private sector participation in public funds management reduces the risk of losing large sums of money.

Unrealistic supplementary budgets divert resources which could be channelled to debt servicing and other productive sectors like agriculture . The government’s inability to judge her actions at the expense of public servants’ plea like teachers and health workers for salary increment is disheartening.

Parliament is mandated to approve supplementary budgets, however, from which account will the supplementary budget be drawn? Can Parliament for once live up to its integrity in effectively executing its mandate? Such resources should be reallocated to facilitate a health facility which lacks equipment/doctors to save the lives mothers who die from complicated delivery processes.

Ms Akello works with Uganda Debt Network.