By John V Sserwaniko
Finance Minister Matia Kasaija will tomorrow Thursday 13th June be the man of the moment as he presents the FY2019/2020 budget. It’s without a doubt that all media attention will be focused on him the entire afternoon and leading comedians will be keenly looking out for any goofs in his presentation that they can turn into fodder for their audiences.
But even more importantly, leading pundits too will keenly be glued on their TV sets as they prepare for what to analyze and tell their audiences later in the day during radio and TV talk shows.
As amiable Kasaija prepares to enjoy all the shine, in this Special Budget feature we reflect on key persons who input into the budgeting processes and preparations preceding budget reading day. We find it appropriate to refer to them as the budgeting process’ unsung heroes because of the tremendous invisible role they play leading to the formal ceremony at which the Finance Minister unveils the budget guiding service delivery for the next 12 months. Who are some of these people and what makes them tick feeding into the budgeting process? What do they exactly do to qualitatively enrich the budgeting process?
READ ON
THE FINANCE MINISTERS
They give the political leadership and oversight to the entire process to ensure the budget is well aligned to the ruling NRM Manifesto promises. They include Evelyn Anite, David Bahati, Gabriel Ajedra, Haruna Kasolo and their senior Matia Kasaija. They interface with many stakeholders to ensure inclusion and prioritization of NRM Manifesto promises is understood and well appreciated. It’s mainly Kasaija and Bahati undertaking most of the actions.
Whereas Bahati engages Parliament (for his eloquence, calmness and generally warm personality), Kasaija is always on standby running to Entebbe for those budgeting-related State House meetings Museveni always has with stakeholders like private sector and donor funding partners. Museveni often rings Kasaija saying “bring your team to defend yourselves.”
It’s during such meetings that adjustments will be made to original budget proposals in case Museveni is persuaded. Besides interfacing with Amos Lugolobi’s Budget Committee, Bahati directly deals with the Presidential Advisory Committee on Budget (PACoB). Exclusively comprising of fairly knowledgeable NRM MPs of great experience, PACoB was created to ensure NRM Caucus views are well captured in the budgeting process to ensure vote-winning issues for the NRM are prioritized. Because he refers to it as the Think Tank of the NRM on budget matters, Museveni has always insisted to have the best cream on PACoB. They originate proposals on new areas to explore to expand revenue collection opportunities by URA to adequately fund budget implementation. Museveni, who comes in towards the end of the process to fine-tune their report, remarkably respects PACoB proposals contained in a report the 30 member committee produces at the very start of the budgeting process.
For instance, it’s PACoB that initiated proposals resulting into money spent on government travels abroad being significantly chopped. The committee also assures the Finance Ministry of political support and shielding incase new budget proposals anger citizens and cause backlash. They embolden technocrats to do their work and leave the job of rationalizing unpopular decisions to the NRM political class.
PACoB meetings are regularly attended by Ministers of Finance, Works, Trade and Education depending on what is on the agenda. The day education is to be discussed Janet Museveni will be asked to come with her technocrats and face PACoB members whose meetings are always held at OPM under the Chairmanship of Premier Ruhakana Rugunda. He is under Museveni directive never to delegate PACoB meetings. Finance Ministry technocrats like Director Budgeting Kenneth Mugambe and Director Economic Affairs Moses Kaggwa often attend to technically guide decision-making. The Committee’s role is merely advisory but very impactful as many technocrats fear to be politically misunderstood for sabotuers.
PATRICK ISIAGI
The reclusive Kachumbala County MP (in Bukedea) plays a very big invisible role influencing the budgeting process. With guidance of intelligence services, he was selected by Museveni and GCW Ruth Nankabirwa to serve as the chairman for the all-powerful PACoB whose membership comprises of the best economic minds in the NRM caucus, chairpersons of relevant sectoral committees and a few former MPs whose inclusion Museveni insisted upon because of their deep knowledge and patriotism. Museveni partly preferred Isiagi because of his vast experience on finance, budgeting and auditing matters before becoming MP. As a civil servant he worked in the Accountant General’s Office, OAG and the Finance Ministry itself. His PACoB committee produces a report from which Museveni, as Uganda’s CEO, derives ideas to sit with Finance Ministry technocrats to derive the budget strategy for that FY.
RUHAKANA RUGUNDA
He is the one who chairs joint meetings between the concerned Ministries, sector heads and the PACoB members especially the final meetings to finalize the report before interfacing with the President. His OPM also generously hosts the Secretariat for PACoB through the office of GCW Ruth Nankabirwa. Also as overall leader of government business, Rugunda participates in harmonizing sectoral priorities to ensure the priorities different MDAs present for financing are aligned to both NRM Manifesto and most importantly the National Development Plan (NDP) geared towards realization of Vision 2040.
RUTH NANKABIRWA
To an ordinary observer, the Kiboga woman MP doesn’t come off as very sophisticated yet the truth is she plays a very big role behind the scenes in determining eventual budget outlook. As GCW, she has an office at the OPM building and the reason this is situated there is to justify PACoB having its Secretariat there. She also sits in Cabinet where she is obliged to market the contents of the PACoB report to fellow ministers. She is also charged with popularizing PACoB recommendations among the NRM Caucus members who eventually influence budget allocations once matters come to the relevant committees and plenary for scrutiny and final appropriation. She is also a bonafide member of PACoB, a think tank for the caucus whose composition she determines in close consultation with the President.
DAVID BAHATI
He fills the gap created by the departure of workaholic Fred Omach the former General Duties Minister who was replaced by Gabriel Ajedra who it turns out isn’t as engaged as Bahati himself. He is also the man Kasaija delegates to ensure all loan applications smoothly go through Parliament and Bahati has found a unique way of working very well with Chairperson Syda Bbumba and other members of the relevant committee.
Gratefully, Bahati also has full trust of the President who (as the country’s Chief Executive) is the ultimate influencer of all budgetary allocations because he is empowered to issue directives before he even thinks of falling back on the very many other levers he has at his disposal. Bahati, will through his mentor Rugunda, access the big man from Rwakitura anytime to make the required consultations as he engages with MPs in light of the adjustments and compromises that may have to be made to strike out a win-win situation for both executive and legislature. Bahati is also confidently eloquent and is often unleashed to interface with the media and critical CSOs activists whenever the required interface warrants higher intellectual abilities from the Ministry’s political leadership.
KEITH MUHAKANIZI
As PSST, he is naturally very critical to the budgeting process especially in balancing between the NRM Manifesto political promises and realization of the development and transformation objectives articulated in the NDP. He has the last word on things like the National Budget Conference to which all accounting officers (CAOs, PSs, agency heads etc) are invited to give their views on the subsequent FY’s budget. It’s always held in October-December to solicit views for inclusion in the National Budget Framework Paper whose authorship is ultimately his responsibility as PSST.
The National Budget Conference also attracts participation of MPs, development partners and ambassadors. It’s a forum where lots of free discussions are held to ensure budgeting process is as inclusive as possible. It’s a good platform for CSOs and the academia to give their views and have them integrated in the thinking process. The views collected from this consultation guide determination of what becomes the budget strategy for that FY.
The Annual Sector Review meetings, held by different sectoral ministries, is another budget-related activity to which the PSST is pivotal. The sector stakeholders, including donors, converge to come up with sectoral budget framework papers which the Muhakanizi-supervised Finance Ministry technocrats consolidate into one National Budget Framework Paper which is sent to Parliament around December for the MPs to begin inputting into the process.
The different sectoral committees of the house will converge to scrutinize the respective sector budgets before plenary convenes to do final appropriation. They are empowered to make changes if they deem it fit but as an act of courtesy, they often do this in consultation with the Finance Minister who actually performs a delegated function on the behalf of President who substantively is the Finance Minister. It’s the Minister/President to involve cabinet in the budgeting process which must be completed by end of May to allow the Minister adequate time to prepare final presentation during the tomorrow-like glamorous event at Serena Conference Center.
To deepen participation, Muhakanizi has sometimes insisted on the same being decentralized to Regional Budget Conferences to give opportunity to local government leaders to participate more and have more of their views and experiences captured. Such consultative processes (that precede the authorship of the Budget Call Circular indicating the country’s priorities for the subsequent FY & amounts likely to be allocated per sector) have sometimes resulted into the Finance Ministry altering what they could originally have proposed or had in mind. The lower level leaders are critical because they directly get feedback from the public for whom all the budgeted service delivery is undertaken.
PATRICK OCHAILAP
He deputizes PSST Muhakanizi and especially for this year, the man from Teso has done much of the work as Muhakanizi underwent multiple complex medical procedures in Turkey. Below these two, you have three Directors backing up the technical wing of the Ministry. These are Maris Wanyera (Director Debt & Cash Policy), Moses Kaggwa (Director Economic Affairs) and the powerful but humble Kenneth Mugambe who, as Director Budgeting, is the most influential technocrat behind the scenes.
KENNETH MUGAMBE
He is the man behind all the figures contained in big man Matia Kasaija’s budget speech tomorrow. Among the technocrats, Mugambe also has the last word on the various expenditure figures permitted for the different GoU MDAs and entities. That ideally is his role but the changing environment and nature of complex public expectations has caused Mugambe to find himself doing much more including innovating to come up with popular initiatives like the Budget Month, a period during which public participation and interest is deepened.
A range of face-the-public activities is arranged enabling MDA leaders directly interface with the public whom they are facilitated (by the budget) to serve. Mugambe insists this is the best way to demystify fears and mystery the public has always associated the budgeting process with. He also sees it as an opportunity to enforce accountability as the public members can go to Kololo and see what the MDAs have been doing and even ask the hard questions in front of media cameras.
At Mugambe’s instigation, such events will this year be simultaneously held on Friday 23rd June in upcountry towns like Lira, Arua, Soroti, Hoima and Kabale. For Kampala, the Budget Breakfast Meeting will that same day be held at Hotel Africana. This will all be preceded with the Post-Budget Dialogue at Serena Conference Center on Thursday 20th June. NBS’ Mildred Tuhaise will moderate the day’s session. The Friday 23rd June events are meant to give opportunity to ordinary citizens, uncomfortable going to places like Serena, to raise their service delivery-related concerns and get instant answers from GoU officials concerned.
MOSES KAGGWA
As Director Economic Affairs, Kaggwa oversees the revenue collection innovations to ensure URA performance improves ideally resulting into better service delivery. He basically is the man charged with ensuring there is enough money (through URA collections, borrowing and DP assistance) to be spent on service delivery by the GoU. Just like Mugambe, Kaggwa (who holds the position in acting capacity) is obliged to ensure the political interests of the NRM aren’t delivered at the expense of the other long term commitments enshrined in NDP/Vision 2040. The fact that the Museveni government is bent at ensuring the larger part of the budget is increasingly funded through domestic sources makes Kaggwa’s office very critical to the budgeting process.
MARIS WANYERA
She heads the Finance Ministry’s Debt & Cash Policy Directorate which oversees the raising of revenue beyond what URA collects. This includes coordinating grants coming in from development partners and loans coming from institutional lenders like AfDB, World Bank and others.
TIM LWANGA
For unknown reasons, Museveni greatly values the former Kyamuswa County MP. The proudly very rich Lwanga is also a former Minister but now in private sector. Museveni shocked many when he rang GCW Ruth Nankabirwa and directed Lwanga’s inclusion in the PACoB even when he isn’t an MP anymore. And indeed, Lwanga (who is also telecom-related financial services business) has always given very useful suggestions on what to include and exclude in the budget. Whenever there are meetings in Entebbe for PACoB to present their report to the H.E, members can even postpone to a date when (the ever globe-trotting) Lwanga is the country because Museveni always respects his views. There is also another elderly ex-MP called Kabule.
SAFIA NALULE
She represents PWDs in Parliament and was deployed on PACoB by Museveni on grounds that she has over the years built lots of experience on top of being there to ensure the budget allocations are prioritized in a way that complies with Uganda’s international obligations relating to PWDs and inclusiveness. Indeed she is always very outspoken in favor of her PWDs constituency during PACoB meetings.
JOSEPH MUVAWALA
Besides being the Katukiro for Busoga kingdom, the flamboyant NPA ED is a brilliant economist whose views the President greatly respects. He also sits on very many GoU boards including the one of UNRA and the one to oversee management of the Oil/Petroleum Fund. He is into budgeting largely because his NPA is by law mandated to issue the government-wide Certificate of Compliance (CoC) showing the extent to which MDAs aligned their expenditures and budget implementation to the priorities enshrined in NDP/Vision 2040. In fact it’s his CoC that MPs depend on to determine compliant Ministries that merit having their budget passed and those that don’t. He also indirectly influences cabinet’s budget-related decisions because his NPA Executive Chairperson (now Pamela Mbabazi Sabiiti) sits in every cabinet meeting as an ex-officio member. Besides being the GoU Think Tank on development planning, Muvawala’s NPA also coordinates the activities of the Presidential Economic Council (PEC).
AMOS LUGOLOBI
He chairs the Budget Committee of Parliament which for this coming FY alone made 100 interventions resulting into reversing allocations that had been made by the Museveni-led executive through the Finance Ministry. There has been anger as expressed by Speaker Kadaga because the Executive looked disorganized as they kept altering the money quantity in the FY2019/20 budget. At first they proposed Shs34trn which moved to Shs39trn and eventually Shs40trn. This angered Kadaga who protested saying Parliament was denied adequate time to consult the public (through committee hearings) which amounted to distorting the budgeting process.
Thick-skinned Lugolobi (representing Ntenjeru) has had to go through thick and thin-having to balance between a combative supervisor Kadaga and a very unrelenting executive (read Museveni). The 100 interventions resulted into more than Shs1trn being moved to the different priority sectors at the expense of what Museveni initially wanted.
This Shs1trn went into NAGRIC budget being grown from mere Shs10bn to Shs63bn to support livestock genetic breeding programs; increasing funding for the students loan scheme; Mulago women specialized hospital; extension services in the agricultural sector; rehabilitation of old dilapidated schools through the MoES and UBC which Lugolobi insisted must be restored because it’s the national broadcaster. Other influential MPs closely complimenting Lugolobi in the different committees include Robert Kasule Sebunya, Syda Bbumba, Henry Musasizi and ironically Muwanga Kivumbi and venerable Cecilia Ogwal who belong to opposition.
- FRED MUHUMUZA
Renowned for his very insightful economic analyses, the Makerere PhD-holding don uses both the public media and behind the scenes approach (having previously worked at Finance) to do objective advocacy aimed at enriching discussions directly feeding into budgeting process. His arguments have enriched public debates and made the modestly-educated members of the public to realize that analyzing budgeting issues isn’t as complicated as previously thought. Even on TV and radio talk shows, Muhumuza speaks with a lot of clarity making many scribes realize that reporting about budget issues isn’t that much complicated.
Muhumuza isn’t only knowledgeable but he is humble and apolitical. Political neutrality compels the technocrats at the Finance Ministry (many of whom are junior to him) not to easily dismiss his views. He is always available to engage even MPs seeking to genuinely deepen their understanding on budget issues to become better debaters. The humble economist will take them through at no cost.
He has famously argued that increasing taxation as a means of budgeting is simply not sustainable because, whereas the GoU has concentrated on using high taxes to raise cash to fund service delivery, more sophisticated and pragmatic economies like US are using taxation policy to impact on FDI through attracting investors. He says lowering corporation tax is a better strategy to attract FDIs than merely concentrating on erecting roads and industrial parks.
Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda
Renowned for despising pettiness with which some political leaders debate budget-related issues, Muhumuza previously warned against blanket anger against Ministries like Education seemingly having large budget allocations. He insists it’s important to understand that much of it goes into salaries since MoES has over 150,000 teachers on payroll. That means citizens shouldn’t just get annoyed when they see increased budget allocation not resulting into better service delivery by MoES. Muhumuza contrasts that with ministries like ICT with fewer employees to remunerate.
He also defends the GoU decision not to allocate much money to UTB because tourism promotion is largely a thing of the private sector. He keeps telling his students that desire to create clarity around the budgeting process is what motivates him to keep appearing on public media to participate in budget-related debates. It’s his conviction, just like is the case with Mubs’ Ramadhan Goobi, that people in the academia have an obligation to give back to society by debating objectively to increase clarity around complex political economy questions.
GIDEON BAGADAWA
Along with KACITA’s Everest Kayondo, Bagadawa (ED for PSFU) always participates in many budget-related discussions in order to represent the views and concerns of the private sector. He is well respected by both government and donor community. Even his constituency the private sector greatly believes in him and they have never contradicted views he articulates in government meetings or even in public media. There is also CSBAG CEO, Julius Mukunda, who is the CSOs Ambassador in the budgeting process. His CSBAG, which is increasingly becoming more assertive, co-funded this year’s budget month activities besides Finance Ministry and URA.
DORIS AKOL
Doris Akol is also very critical to the budgeting process being the Commissioner General of URA which in FY2019/20 is expected to collect close to Shs20trn to fund service delivery by the GoU MDAs. Akol is also thickly involved in staging the Service Excellence Exhibition at Kololo Ceremonial Grounds for the MDAs to demonstrate to the public their accomplishments for the passing FY. Indeed without her URA collecting so much, there would be no service delivery to write home about. Her superiors in the Finance Ministry have lately shown growing trust in Akol’s leadership by giving URA responsibility to collect even tuition fees in Universities and permits tourists pay for when visiting national game parks. Her conviction is that the public becomes more enthusiastic towards tax payment once they see what their money does. (For comments, call, text or whatsapp us on 0703164755 or email us at mulengera2040@gmail.com).
