Justice institutions get 2% budget allocation increase

Kampala. Seventeen institutions that are mandated with dispensing justice in the country have got a nominal increase of two per cent in this new budget allocation of financial year 2016/17.
According to budget projections that Daily Monitor has seen, the institutions that make up the Justice Law and Order Sector (JLOS), will be getting 1.078 trillion compared to last financial year 2015/16 in which they got 1.051 trillion.
But in comparison to the national Budget of 26 trillion, the 17 justice institutions will only be getting a paltry 4.15 per cent of the national cake.

As it has been the practice, the Police Force will take the lion’s share of Shs519 billion though in the last financial year, they were allocated slightly more money amounting to Shs527 billion.
Other institutions in the JLOS that have been receiving huge budget allocations are the Judiciary, ministry of Justice and the Prisons.
The Judiciary will, this financial year, be getting Shs116 billion with the Prisons getting Shs141 billion according to the projections.

Speaking to this newspaper on behalf of the JLOS institutions, deputy senior technical adviser, Mr Sam Wairagala, said so far all the justice institutions are performing at 92 per cent.
Mr Wairagala explained that it’s the police and the prisons that have spent much more of this money from the financial year ending. On the contrary, he listed institutions such as the Judicial Service Commission, Law Development Centre and Uganda Registration Service Bureau as entities that had spent least money in the financial year ending.
Explaining the least expenditure by these institutions, Mr Wairagala attributed the same to their being small in composition.

Commenting about the overall budget for JLOS, Mr Wairagala said its little, before lashing out at government that he said seems to prioritise on spending much more on infrastructure.
He said the allocation of the national Budget should be distributed fairly arguing that the justice institutions are very crucial in development and that without a vibrate judicial system, no investor will want to settle here.
“You can’t gain much with good infrastructure while having a weak and ill funded judicial system, slow business registration process..” said Mr Wairagala
Adding: “the same affirmative allocation must be put in other sectors. JLOS institutions reduce the risk in investment, the risks that infrastructure alone cannot solve. You need a mix and a match, in short we need a holistic approach.”

JLOS Mandate
JLOS is a sector wide approach adopted by the Government of Uganda to bring together institutions with closely linked mandates of administering justice and maintaining law and order and human rights, into developing a common vision, policy framework, unified on objectives and plan over the medium term. It focuses on a holistic approach to improving access to and administration of justice through the sector wide approach to planning, budgeting, programme implementation, monitoring and evaluation. Its major goal is to promote the rule of law.
The other institutions that form JLOS include the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development and Uganda Law Society.Others are: Directorate of Public Prosecutions, Uganda Law Reform Commission, Uganda Human Rights Commission, Uganda Registration Services Bureau, Tax Appeals Tribunal, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Centre for Arbitration and Dispute Resolution, Directorate of Citizenship and Migration Control, and Ministry of Local Government.

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