Prime
Oulanyah to MPs: No recess without passing Budget
Mr Jacob Oulanyah
PARLIAMENT- Lawmakers will not have recess unless they process the budget to completion, the deputy speaker, Mr Jacob Oulanyah, has said.
Mr Oulanyah was yesterday presiding over the afternoon session.
“This House will be prorogued on the day we finish with the appropriation Bill but in any case not later than May 30, at least that is what the law says,” Mr Oulanyah said.
“If we finish it on the 25, we prorogue Parliament and have some recess but if we stretch it up to the end of the month, we shall prorogue it only up to the 6th of June for the State-of-the-Nation Address,” he added.
He said there is a lot of unfinished business that will eat into the usual recess period enjoyed by lawmakers between the passing of the budget and the State-of-the-Nation Address.
The address by the President kickstarts a new Calendar for the House.
“If we work hard and finish early enough then we might have two weeks of recess before we start the next session of Parliament; it is really in our hands and the hands of the budget Committee to report back next week… and once we finish with the supply, the report of the budget, and adopt the appropriations bill, we shall break for recess,” Mr Oulanyah said.
Counter Accusations
On Tuesday, the budget committee chairperson, Mr Amos Lugoloobi, accused Mr David Bahati, the Minister of State for Planning, for attempting to ‘frustrate’ appropriation on the grounds that the ministry issued them a draft appropriation bill in an encrypted (pdf) copy instead of editable excel spread sheets, making it hard for them to incorporate the amendments to the budget.
Mr Lugoloobi said this was a machination for ministry officials to monitor every stage of appropriation which he said should not be happening. “You want to undermine the work of the Committee but you have no business in the decisions we take in this Committee, let the Committee do its work,” Mr Lugoloobi said.
He said the absence of an editable budget documents will frustrate the appropriation deadline.
But Mr Bahati told the legislators that whereas he was willing to help the Committee with editable copies, the ministry was under no obligation to do so, especially given they have fulfilled the statutory requirement of delivering the appropriation bill and related budget documents.
