By Otim Nape
Kenneth Mugambe who (as Director Budgeting at the Finance Ministry) is technically and effectively in charge of major government expenditure decisions in this country has accused MPs and voters for always conducting themselves in a way that inadvertently distorts implementation of budget activities almost every financial year.
Speaking as one of the panelists discussing ways in which government can mobilize financial resources required to implement National Development Plan (NDP) III, running between 2020 and 2025, at Serena Conference Center, Mugambe said it was unfair for anyone to blame failure to 100% achieve development planning objectives articulated in NDP II on his Finance Ministry because (as NPA ED Joseph Muvawala testified earlier), they released to MDAs and different sectors all the money required under NDP II during its five year period. In fact, Muvawala corroborated Mugambe’s claim by confessing that the funding the Finance Ministry released to MDAs to specifically implement NDP II exceeded the targets the NPA framers of NDP II had stipulated.
Mugambe admitted there are inadequacies when it comes to aligning budgeting and financial allocation decisions to the priorities enumerated under the NDPs but said the larger distortions and implementation constraints have resulted from politicians especially MPs who keep adjusting their allowances upwards and thereby encroaching on the limited resource envelope available. He said each time MPs vote to increase their allowances, this diminishes on the money available to fund direct service delivery to the populace in whose interest NPA authors the NDPs. The NDPs are themselves part of the strategy to realize the 2040 Vision that seeks to serve citizens better and turn Uganda into a middle-income country.
Mugambe said these are bitter facts which many technocrats fear to publicly point out because of the enormous resources’ appropriation and oversight powers the legislators wield. He also referred to ceaseless demands by citizens to the President seeking to have new cities and districts created saying all these result into more administrative units and LC1s being created yet each subsequent office holder must be monthly remunerated by government.
Preferring to broadly to all this as the “inescapable political economy question,” Mugambe said such demands made on the President (who substantively is the Minister of Finance) distort the budgeting processes and implementation and by extension affect the pace at which targets enshrined in NDPs and Vision 2040 can be realized to transform the quality of life for the citizens.
Other eminent speakers at the NPA/UNDP consultative breakfast meeting meant to solicit views into the thinking process for NDP III included NPA Chairperson Prof Pamela Mbabazi, ED Dr. Joseph Muvawala and UN Resident Coordinator El-Khidir Daloum whose views represented the official thinking of 18 UN agencies operating in Kampala. Others were WB’s Ivan Mwondha, UNDP’s Innocent Ejolu, URA’s James Odong, Financial Sector Deepening Uganda’s Rashmi Pillai, UNDP Economic Advisor Yemesrach Workie and CMA CEO Keith Kalyegira. (For comments, call, text or whatsapp us on 0703164755 or email us at mulengera2040@gmail.com).
