Govt makes U-turn on new finance law
Nandala Mafabi, Budadiri West MP. Said the proposed amendment weakens accountability in the country and exposes public funds to abuse..
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Not pleased. MPs poke holes in the planned move, saying it will kill the spirit of affirmative action
Parliament.
The ministry of Finance wants to amend the Public Finance Management Act, 2015, an important legislation that ushered in a new regime of public expenditure management, barely eight months after President Museveni signed it into law.
Although Parliament and the donor community struggled to include a provision in the law that mandates all government agencies to make budgets that are gender and equity responsive in keeping with the global sustainable development goals, government wants this provision repealed, according to amendments before Parliament.
This has angered MPs and officials at the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC), who accused Finance ministry officials of “duplicity”. Ms Catherine Amal, the EOC secretary, said the proposed amendments “will kill the spirit of affirmative action.”
“The poor people and other vulnerable groups will not access services in public facilities. The amendments have been moved in bad faith and the Commission was not even consulted,” Ms Amal said.
The law had provided that the Finance minister, in consultation with the EOC, issues a certificate of compliance, specifying measures taken by government agencies to equalise opportunities for marginalised groups.
EOC had started training government agencies, and even developed the score card for assessing gender and equity compliance as a requirement in the budget. The donors had also advertised to build capacity to ensure that Uganda prioritises gender and equity issues.
By amending a law that has not been tested, the lawmakers said government is being “unreasonable” and vowed to block the amendments. In other amendments, the government wants the contingency fund supplemented with other sources of funding for the supplementary.
Although the law had provided that any draw down from Bank of Uganda must be authorised by Parliament, government wants this revisited to allow the ministry of Finance to borrow from the Central Bank, provided they can pay back within a year.
The ministry of Finance, however, explained that the current provisions embargo drawing from the Central Bank unnecessarily and hence cripple government operations.
Ministry of Finance spokesperson Jim Mugunga said the budgeting process follows a holistic approach that is intended to benefit all Ugandans, including marginalised groups.
On the supplementary, Mr Mugunga said operationally, the dictates of the new law were extended to cover situations where movement of money from one vote to another is to be done. “Practically, this makes it impossible; for example to pay pensioners their money where resources may not be available under their specific vote but are available within the same paying entity,” he said.
