Government releases Shs4.3 trillion for salaries, pensions

Permanent Secretary Keith Muhakanizi

Kampala- The Finance ministry has released Shs4.3 trillion to run central and local government operations, with orders to accounting officers to mandatorily clear salaries, pension and arrears by the end of next month.
The funds, which cover this month through to end of December, represents 29.3 per cent of the approved 2018/19 budget.

Permanent Secretary Keith Muhakanizi, speaking at the transfer of the cash on Friday, said “salary, pension and gratuity arrears released must be paid [to verified recipients] by the end of November 2018.”

Mr Muhakanizi said Shs777.8b out of the second quarter allocation will go to local governments, deflecting previous criticism by districts regarding late release of money and underfunding.

In the current Financial Year, all local government budgets were for the first time prepared using the Programme Budgeting System which posed operational challenges to stakeholders.

Challenges
For instance, some local governments failed or delayed to access funding, but Mr Muhakanizi said the problems have now been resolved.

“The development budget for local government is 33 per cent of the approved budget. This is in line with government commitment to release funds for local governments timely in order to minimise procurement delays and by giving them enough time for implementation of government programmes so as to avoid unspent balances at the end of the financial year,” he said.

Uganda’s missions abroad, however, will not benefit from this disbursement following a decision earlier to send them cash only twice each financial year.

Allocation
CENTRAL GOVERNMENT
Shs1 trillion Salaries and wages
Shs145.16b Pension and gratuity
Shs35b Uneb
Shs648b Unra
Shs153b Uganda Road Fund
Shs95b NMS (for essential drugs)
Shs10b Gender (for elderly)
LOCAL GOVT
Shs505b Wages
Shs52.9b Non-wage bill
Shs149.1b Development expenditure
Shs27.8b Pension
Shs21.1b Gratuity
Shs4.9b Salary arrears
Shs16.7b Pension and gratuity