Govt cuts Oulanyah burial budget again

The government has revised the budget for the burial of former Speaker Jacob Oulanyah twice within three days after Monitor published an exposé of the original Shs2.5 billion allocation.
Our itemisation in the Monday edition of the planned funeral expenses sparked countrywide uproar and State Minister for Finance,   Planning and Economic  Development (General Duties), Mr Henry Musasazi, on Tuesday and again yesterday said they had cut the budget to Shs1.8 billion and Shs1.2 billion, respectively.
This means the initial budget, which members of the Acholi Parliamentary Group claimed was inflated, has in total been more than halved, and the final allocation is nearly equal to what organisers had planned to spend on the burial day alone.

In the original budget whose figures were widely shared on social media, and run by FM radio stations as well as online publications, following this newspaper’s exposé, the big-ticket expenditure items included burial day (Shs1.1 billions), A-Plus Funeral Management (Shs226 million), Acholi Parliamentary Group (Shs313 million), finance committee (Shs248.7 million), security (Shs158.5 million), and fuel (Shs124 million).
It remained unclear if the budget chop was prompted by our exposé, the criticism the revelation triggered, or both.
In an interview yesterday, minister Musasizi said: “We have given them (national organising committee headed by Presidency Minister Milly Babalanda) a limit of Shs1.2 billion.”

“They are going to revise [the original budget] and come up with the breakdown of the Shs1.2 billion, it is not our job [as ministry of Finance] to do that,” he said.
Mr Chris Obore, the director for communication and public affairs at Parliament, yesterday said he was “aware unofficially” of a second revision of the funeral and burial budget for the first Speaker of the 11th Parliament.
Oulanyah, 56, died in a United States hospital on March 20 and his body is expected to arrive by Ethiopian Airlines this afternoon, laying the ground for a series of funeral activities ahead of an April 8 State burial.

READ: Emoluments that await Oulanyah’s spouse, children

The budget for the former Speaker’s interment, like the costs of airlifting and treating him at the University of Washington Medical Centre, has been accompanied by polarising public debate.

The national organising committee had planned to spend Shs2.5 billion, for an “excellent” send-off of the former Omoro County representative who, as Speaker of Parliament, was also the third highest ranked in the national order of precedence.
On Tuesday, however, Finance State minister (Planning), Mr Amos Lugoloobi, presented to Parliament a statutory budgetary revision under which the government made available to the Legislature Shs1.8b to meet Oulanyah’s burial expenses.

This meant an almost 30 percent, or Shs700m, reduction of the original Shs2.5b budget.
In yesterday’s interview, minister Musasazi attributed the second budget cut to the threshold funds, saying “that is what we can find”.
The Clerk to Parliament, Mr Adolf Mwesigye, who doubles as the accounting officer, had been informed about the slashed budget, he said.
“Like I told you earlier (Tuesday), we were going to revise it [the budget] further down and that is what we have done, and we have communicated to the Clerk of Parliament,” he said.

The emergency expenditure is to be footed from the Consolidated Fund.
The ministry had also cited unnecessary expenditures as one of the reasons for the initial cut, while other sources spotlighted cases of inflated prices for some items.
Yesterday, the Inspectorate of Government, Ms Beti Kamya, said her office plans to investigate the cash bonanza to establish possibility of impropriety.
Efforts to reach Ms Babalanda for details of items to be affected by the budget cuts were futile by press time.
With the late Oulanyah body expected to arrive at Entebbe airport today, minister Musasizi said the funds would be available as and when they are needed.

“They should not be worried; everything will be done as planned and he [Oulanyah] will get a desirable sendoff.  They have to spend from within [the current budget], it is just an administrative way of doing it,” he said.

READ: Oulanyah to be buried next to mum, wife

This follows concerns by Acholi Parliamentary Group chairperson, Mr Anthony Akol, who revealed that they had not received the money for preparations by Omoro District local government, including upgrading the roads leading to Oulanyah ancestral home in Lalogi village.