MPs approve Shs80b for payment of court awards

Members of Parliament on the Budget Committee have approved Shs80 billion for orders of mandamus (unpaid court awards) for 2019/2020 financial year.

Mandamus is a judicial remedy in the form of an order from a court to government to do some specific act which that body is obliged under law to do.

The MPs made the decision after the finance committee chairperson, Mr Henry Musasizi recommended that Shs20 billion be cut from the proposed Shs140 billion for court awards. This had been proposed in the budget for treasury operations under the ministry of finance.

The budget cut is based on the fact that the government court awards under mandamus have risen from Shs20 billion in financial year 2015/2016 to Shs120 billion in 2018/2019 and Shs140 billion in 2019/2020.

However, the budget committee members led by the chairperson, Mr Amos Lugoloobi and Patrick Isiagi, further cut the budget for court awards by another Shs40 billion.

They argue that there is no evidence that the ministry has all the orders of mandamus amounting to Shs140 billion.

“My view is that we should move another Shs40 billion given other expenditure pressures and there is no evidence that we have these orders of mandamus totalling to that amount that they are requesting for,” Mr Lugoloobi said.

Therefore, Shs80 billion will be allocated for paying arrears and orders of mandamus in the next financial year.
Mr Musasizi also supported the budget committee’s decision to reduce the allocation from Shs140 billion to Shs80 billion for court awards.