Govt cuts welfare budgets by Shs300b

Government has slashed the recurrent expenditure of eight items by Shs333b compared to the current financial year budget.
This publucation’s analysis of the next financial year’s National Budget Framework Paper (NBFP) and the FY2023/2024 Approved Budget Estimates,  show that Shs2.6 trillion will be spent on allowances, donations, travels, special meals and drinks, vehicle acquisition, welfare and entertainment, printing and photocopying, and workshops and meetings down from Shs2.91 trillion in the current year.
Finance minister Matia Kasaija last week said his ministry was still scrutinising budgets for ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to further reduce expenditure “and limit it to only entities that really need to spend it.”
Without revealing how much more this budget will be reduced, Mr Kasaija said his aim is to ensure that all funds released develop either individuals or the country.
“Every shilling that I put out I want it to be productive either through human beings or through projects for us to get the economy to move and to move at a speed. We want to grow at 6 percent per annum for the next two to three years,” he said.
The first item to suffer a significant cut is the allowances whose budget has been reduced from the current Shs1.2t to Shs726b. A total of Shs1.1t was spent on this item in the 2022/2023 Financial Year, according to the analysed documents.
Like allowances, the budgets for printing and photocopying services; and workshops and meetings have also been revised down by Shs1b each, to Shs113b and Shs152b, respectively.
The budget for travel has, however, shot up from Shs728.4b in the current financial year to Shs778b. Relatedly, the budget for special meals and drinks have shot up from Shs223b to Shs296b.
Money available for entities and individuals to donate have been increased from Shs153b to Shs163b, acquisition of new vehicles will cost Shs224b from the current Shs197.4b while welfare and entertainment of different MDAs have been allocated Shs133b up from the current Shs120.1b.
Economic experts and policy analysts, who spoke to this publication, said opening such spending to all entities is catastrophic to the country, which is already grappling with the economic shock caused by Covid-19, international wars, negative implication of the Anti-Homosexual Act and the swelling public debt.
They say letting every entity access this recurrent expenditure may be abused by some government officials who may use it as conduits to siphon taxpayers’  money.
Partially, agreeing with the experts, Mr Kasaija said they are attacking sectors that are re-consumptive.
“You know the government is a very funny entity. Some people will [allegedly] slot in money for reasons they know to themselves so we have targeted those [entities] that actually are not useful, those that we think have got use they will be maintained,”he said.
Singling out travels where the government has spent Shs1.4t between the 2022/2023 and 2023/2024 financial years, Mr Kasaija said they now want to invest funds to only essential journeys.
“Let me talk about travel, if money is allocated to travel and that travel does not produce results. These are the things we consider, if you travel we want you to bring results either you get education or you go look for resources to come and help Uganda,” he said.
The ministry Permanent Secretary and Secretary to Treasury, Mr Ramathan Ggoobi, while appearing on 93.3 Kfm radio’s Views, People and News (VPN) programme on Saturday, April 6, said their aim is to ensure that the travel budget is further reduced.
He clarified that they (ministry) did not propose to cut the budget for Parliament as recently reported by the media but presented a proposal of reducing the foreign travels which they have slashed from Shs240b to under Shs100b in the last two financial years.
More than 170 MDAs, led by the Parliament will spend Shs108b on foreign travels in the next financial year, according to the FY2024/2025 NBFP. This is up from Shs90.2b and Shs93.3b that was spent on the same in the 2023/2024 and 20222/2023 financial years.
“For the essential ones [entities], we shall not cut, we are going to be more selective. [As government,] we don’t want these wasteful expenditures,” Mr Kasaija said.
The executive director of the Civil Society Budget Advocacy Group (CSBAG), Mr Julius Mukunda, said expenditures such as travels, especially abroad have become a money fetching venture for government officials.
“You wonder why an auditor would travel for example to the mission in New York to audit yet they can do it from here, especially with the advent of technology,” he said.

Experts
The executive director of the Centre for Budget and Tax Policy (CBTP), Mr David Walakira, said Mr Kasaija’s ministry must be deliberate in ensuring that they tighten up recurrent expenditures.
He pointed out donations that he said have been abused by some government officials like the House Speaker Anita Among, who was faulted by the online exhibition on X platform, which revealed that she used her junior’s bank accounts to pass through donation funds, claims the House later authenticated.
“Donations, however, much they are legal, must be given to an entity who must also give it to the applicant, who in turn also signs for it in accordance with the Public Collection Act,” he said.
Section 2(1) of the Act states that it’s illegal for any person to make any appeal to the public or any part or class of the public for donations in money or in kind for any object, except when such donations are registered in accordance with the Act.
“There is no proof that these entities follow this Act while donating. What we are saying is that can these funds be also reduced since eliminating it completely is hard and only given to those entities and individuals who really must spend them other than throwing to each and every one who wishes to donate,” he said.
While delivering a lecture of opportunity to the officers under the Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) of Uganda Police at State House Entebbe on August 4, 2023, President Museveni said whereas prosperity of Uganda and Africa entails getting each person or family involved in the production of goods and services, strategic security is key to enable this.
“You cannot create prosperity by donations or handouts from the government but to enable the population to produce goods or services and sell them and in that way, each family can get money to build a prosperous life,” he said.
State House, Parliament, and Office of the President are the top entities that are sharing the donation budget, according to the NBFP.
Relatedly, the Defence ministry will spend Shs220b which translates into 74 percent of this budget. The same ministry has been topping expenditure on this particular item for the last two financial years.
The Uganda Police Force and Uganda National Examination Board (Uneb) will follow the Defence ministry with a planned discretionary spending on Special Meals and Drinks worth Shs60.1b and Shs11b, respectively while the remaining about 35 entities with this budget, will spend between Shs20m and Shs6.5b each.
“You cannot eliminate some items completely, for example there are items like special meals, where State House needs it because they host people all the time but it is possible to reduce the amount,” said Ms Sophie Nampewo Njuba, the Manager Governance and Accountability at Oxfam Uganda.
Kasaija’s Finance ministry, the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (Ubos), Health ministry, Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), Parliament, Local Government ministry, its energy counterpart, Office of the Prime Minister, Ministry of Water and Environment, and the National Curriculum Development Centre are sharing 60 percent of the Shs152b budget earmarked for workshops, meetings and seminars. The 10 entities have been spending 63 percent of this item’s budget for the past two financial years.
Relatedly, 10 entities, including Judiciary, URA, Parliament, State House,  National Citizenship and Immigration Control, Office of the President, Uganda National Medical Stores, Electoral Commission, Energy and Finance ministries are consuming about 50 percent of the welfare budget in the years analysed.
Experts suggest five areas, where the government must invest funds slashed from the recurrent expenditure, including Education, Transport, Agriculture, Health, Sanitation and Business.

Ms Nampewo said:  “Three weeks now we were talking about MPs allowances, we were talking about how much the Speaker and her team get but at the same time a classroom fell in Tororo, where should the money go? I think we have plenty, have a functioning education system [where] schools are operational, some do not have teachers because they are not being paid.”
She added: “Doctors are striking every year because of pay, many farmers do not need money from government but genuine inputs, extension services, good roads, markets for their produce. We lose mothers while delivering diseases like Cholera we have not worked on.”

Relatedly, Mr Walakira said: “There are so many areas where this money can be invested and change the lives of Ugandans other than investing it in these areas which we believe are avenues facilitating corruption.”
A senior Makerere University Economics lecturer, Mr Richard Ssempala, said government needs to use the available resources well, and thus should utilise “our embassies abroad.”