BREAKFAST MEETING HELD WITH PARLIAMENTARY TECHNICAL STAFF In another development, last week CSBAG held a breakfast meeting with parliament technical staff to discuss insights into Uganda’s Budget, 2013/14. Julius Mukunda the Coordinator of CSBAG presented the CSBAG concerns with the 2013/14 budget which among other included issues of high unemployment and limited job creation, minimal support to the social services sectors, weaknesses in the taxation system, increasing debt burden, supplementary budget indiscipline, corruption & theft of public resource and the budget call circular implementation issues. The issues raised were pertinent to the audience who mostly agreed with the CSBAG concerns but with some comments and reservations. Reflections as to whether the government priorities match with the citizen’s priorities and as to when they are actually achievable and the possible impediments to attainment of these priorities were some of the questions posed to the parliamentary technical staff. A lot of debate was generated in this meeting which informed our strategies and our position. The CSBAG secretariat concerns constituted the better half of the discussion but also CSBAG members raised issues that the technical staff deliberated. For example, Josephine Watera from the Research Department of the Parliament of Uganda suggested to CSBAG to raise concerns about the huge amount of money that is spent on rent for government offices and therefore suggested that government should consider moving the all the offices to one center that would then minimise on the expenses of running government businesses. Daniel Lukwago a CSBAG member pointed out that the production bottlenecks due to drought will cause inflation again. He also noted the inequality that is in the access to the Agriculture Financial Facility. That 9 companies accessed 70% of the funds and these could still afford to get this credit from the commercial banks as they have the credentials. Mr. Olweny from VEDCO posed two strategic questions that remained unanswered; who decides what the national budget priorities should be? Are the MDAs evaluated physically basing on their plans and out puts at the end of the FY for every sector? Olwenyagain pointed out that the Marketing board in agriculture that used to help the poor farmers access the markets was left to the private sector. The private sector which has no interest in the plight of the majority engaged in the agriculture sector is all about the profit maximization goal thus exploiting all those in the value chain. This makes agriculture unprofitable for those that are involved at a subsistence level. To voice this further, Richard from the Research Department pointed out that agriculture financing is low, lower than the 10% agreed upon in the Maputo declaration. Stringent requirements like audited books of accounts make it had for the local farmers to access credit. As a result of the insights heighted in the CSBAG concerns, especially on agriculture, Jackie, a clerk at the Parliament of Uganda suggested a meeting between CSBAG and the agriculture committee to further deliberate on the low budget absorption rate of the released funds to the sector as opposed to simply advocating for more funding to the sector. Mr.Wanyaka Samuel, the director for the budget office of the Parliament of Uganda while closing the meeting noted that there is lack of information to do things the best way and therefore a need to solicit for information from the parliament. The breakfast meeting was a success considering the wealth of knowledge we amassed from the various view and comments given by both the technical staff of the parliament and the CSABG fraternity. We are grateful to the participants for sparing their valuable time to us and we plan on holding onto this good relationship to better our voice in advocating for equity, efficiency and accountability in the budgeting process.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 12:14:23 +0000
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