Government sets date for national budget reading

According to information from the Parliament communication department, Government has set June 14, 2023 as the date for reading the national budget.

The communication from Parliament also indicates that President Yoweri Museveni is scheduled to deliver his State of the Nation Address on June 7, 2023.

Meanwhile, the national budget for the next financial year has risen to sh52.7 trillion after the finance ministry presented a corrigendum (additional budget) of sh800b.

Whereas the Speaker of Parliament Anita Among had earlier communicated during Wednesday morning sitting that Parliament would be appropriating and passing the national, it was postponed to Thursday (May 18) after the budget committee requested for more time to scrutinize the corrigendum.

The Public Finance Management Act requires Parliament to scrutinize, appropriate, and pass the final national budget before end of the month of May.

The Constitution, the Budget Act and the Public Finance Management Act give the ultimate authority to determine the allocation of funds in the national budget to Parliament.

The 2023/2024 national budget will be the fourth budget for the implementation of the five-year 2020-2025 third National Development Plan (NDPIII) which among other targets intends to reduce Uganda’s poverty rate to 15% and to increase the country’s per capita income (average earning of every Ugandan annually) to $1300 (Sh4.8m).

Latest statistics put Uganda’s per capita income at $1052 and the poverty rate at 20.3%.

World Bank last week released a report indicating Uganda has not made significant progress in poverty reduction in the last 10 years.

In its January 2023 report on the Budget Framework Paper (draft national budget) for the next financial year of 2023/2024, Parliament implored the executive to ensure more resources are allocated to the productive sectors of Agriculture, ICT, tourism, and industry to improve the performance of NDPIII.

Last week, the National Planning Authority launched the midterm review report, which indicates that the performance of NDPIII is only at 17%.

According to the midterm review report, the poor performance of NDPIII, is attributed to weak planning and inadequate budgeting for core projects and productive sectors.