How the politics is playing out in the 2025/26 budget
Finance Minister Matia Kasaija arrives at Kololo Independence Grounds for the budget reading. PHOTO/ FILE
What you need to know:
A quick look at the national budget reveals different shades of the 2025/26 financial plan, outlining the government’s projected revenues and spending for the financial year
When it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it is most likely a duck. This is, however, not the case with the 2025/26 national budget, read last Thursday by Minister of Finance, Mr Matia Kasaija.
A quick look at the national budget reveals different shades of the 2025/26 financial plan, outlining the government’s projected revenues and spending for the financial year.
However, a deeper assessment—according to political analysts, observers and players—frames the next financial year’s budget, barely a fortnight away, as a typical election-year budget.
Political watchers, analysts and players Sunday Monitor spoke to all appear to concur that the forthcoming general election, set for early next year, has influenced the shape of the budget—a key instrument for allocating resources, influencing economic activity, and implementing policies that impact political activities in several ways.
They also agreed that the national budget can serve as a conduit through which resources are easily channelled towards prioritised mass programmes and initiatives, tilting the balance of play in favour of the incumbent, who is technically the minister of finance.
In interviews with political sector players, Sunday Monitor established that despite the 2025/26 budget bearing different nuances, it is difficult to discount several allocations and commitments that appear to speak directly to the forthcoming general election—especially now, when the political temperature is rising ahead of the civic exercise early next year.
Despite featuring in previous budgets, the increased allocation for the Parish Development Model (PDM) and related initiatives seems to have raised eyebrows.
“The 2025/26 budget is an election budget,” said Dr Sarah Bireete, founding partner and Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Governance (CCG).
She continued: “This can be traced to the allocations of money going directly to citizens through initiatives like Emyooga, which saw an additional budget of Shs100 billion, in addition to the previous Shs660 billion.
“Coupled with a Shs1.059 trillion allocation for PDM every year—and challenges of partisan distribution notwithstanding—these programmes will be used to solicit votes for NRM by using the beneficiaries as campaign agents.”
Dr Bireete, an astute political analyst, further argues that a salary raise for soldiers—specifically for lower-cadre Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) officers—in the 2025/26 budget is another indicator that the government’s projected revenues and spending for the coming financial year were influenced by the forthcoming election.
It should be noted that the Ministry of Public Service is implementing a broader salary enhancement strategy for all public servants, including the UPDF. This initiative includes a significant allocation of about Shs215 billion specifically for salary enhancement for lower-cadre UPDF officers.
“We are seeing an increase in the security budget, especially in the component under the UPDF, yet legally it is the police mandated to manage law and order aspects of the elections,” Dr Bireete said. She added: “The UPDF is likely to play a more dominant role than the police in elections. And note that the governance, security and rule of law sector has an allocation of Shs9.9 trillion.
“It is obvious that this budget is meant to cover the upcoming general elections—so it is an election budget.”
In another interview with Sunday Monitor, the Director of Manifesto Implementation, Mr Willis Bashasha, said:
“The coming national budget is closely aligned with the NRM manifesto.”
And this, according to the Deputy Permanent Secretary and Secretary to the Treasury (PSST), Mr Patrick Ocailap, is not unusual—because the national budget is, or can be, a political tool. He told Sunday Monitor that although the 2025/26 financial year is significant—as it marks the first year of implementing the National Development Plan IV, as well as the first year of a new government after the 2026 general elections—it was formulated based on economic assessments.
He said: “We don’t look at politics. Our objective is to achieve tenfold growth within 15 years—from the benchmark of $50 billion to $500 billion by FY2039/40. So, it is not correct that we have politics in our mind during the process and formulation, although, as I said earlier, the national budget…”
Is it worth it?
As for the Associate Director at the Great Lakes Institute for Strategic Studies, Mr Godber Tumushabe, while budget allocations may match the manifesto of the regime in power, the bigger question is whether that alignment translates into real economic transformation.
“What I see is politicisation of the budget process.
“Instead of aligning the NRM manifesto to the NDP, the entire planning process has been bent to suit the manifesto. That’s a distortion. If the NRM were a disciplined organisation, it would align its political promises to national development plans—not the other way around,” said Mr Tumushabe.
