State house - $8.2 million
Roads Money Diverted to CHOGM
The East African (Nairobi)
NEWS4 September 2007
Posted to the web 4 September 2007
By David Malingha Doya
Nairobi
Billions of shillings earmarked for maintenance of rural roads in Uganda have been diverted to expenditures related to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) to be held in November.
This means that over 2,000 km of roads upcountry, of which over 20 per cent is in poor condition and whose maintenance awaits money from the Treasury, will deteriorate further if the government does not fill the funding gap in the course of the year.
The decision follows a request by Finance Minister Dr Ezra Suruma that parliament allow the government to incur "emergency" expenditure of Ush153 billion ($90m) on CHOGM activities by cutting the budgets of all ministries for financial year 2007/2008. Parliament was also informed that government would be footing the whole CHOGM budget without any financial assistance from the Commonwealth Secretariat.
It has, however, emerged that parliament put the whole burden of funding the "emergency" expenditure on the Ministries of Works and Transport and Foreign Affairs, a decision whose effects are expected to be felt outside the city in bad roads and cash-strapped missions abroad.
Out of about Ush150 billion ($88.2 million) that was proposed for road maintenance and repairs under that ministry this year, Ush45 billion ($26.4 million), just under one-third of the national road-maintenance budget, has been allocated to fund road contracts under CHOGM alone.
Secondly, parliament has authorised the government to use another Ush14 billion ($8.2 million) from the same ministry for redeveloping State House, which is listed among the possible accommodation options for Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, co-chair of the summit, during her stay in Uganda.
Originally, Dr Suruma had earmarked only Ush55 billion ($32.3 million) for CHOGM activities under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in this financial year's budget proposals, which are currently before Parliament. However, parliament now wants the ministry to spend a total of Ush94 billion ($55.2 million) on the CHOGM budget alone.
Parliamentary Budget Committee chairman William Oketcho said, "It is important to appreciate that the funds are of an emergency nature and arise from the fact the Ush55 billion that was provided for under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not take into account the full requirements for the activities."
Mr Oketcho added that the balances on the budget from the previous financial year, which are yet to be presented to parliament later this month, could be used to compensate for the Ush45 billion ($26.4 million) that was meant for road repairs upcountry. The budget committee also recommended that funds extended to private hotels be made recoverable, since the money will be taken from the resource envelope.
However, the concentrating of ministry budgets on CHOGM activities could have far-reaching implications for social services such as roads this year, said legislators who did not assent to the decision, which they say was "hurriedly" made.
Patrick Amuriat, the shadow minister for works and transport, said, "Over 2,000km of road are going to suffer this year because money that could have been used to repair and maintain them, is going to be used for CHOGM roads alone. Our missions abroad are also going to continue suffering because the Ministry of Foreign Affairs budget has also been severely affected."
This appears to be a blow to Dr Suruma's own budget priorities for this financial year, which, according to his budget speech, include development and maintenance of transport infrastructure, with the target of maintaining roads in every constituency in the country.
The budget speech also revealed that there is a huge backlog of road maintenance, with over 20 per cent of roads being in "poor or bad condition" while 60 per cent are in "warning condition." Dr Suruma had allocated Ush35 billion ($20.5 million) to clear the backlog of road maintenance.
Mr Amuriat told The EastAfrican that the opposition would rather have had a portion of each ministry's budget cut, a suggestion that was originally fronted by Dr Suruma in his request, but was reportedly turned down in closed door meetings of the budget committee.
Before this however, the debate about authorising government to spend more money on CHOGM activities was focused on the details of the budget that Dr Suruma presented, amounting to about Ush162 billion ($95.2 million) and its "emergency" nature, rather than on where the money should come from.
Indeed, Dr Suruma's budget was cut from Ush162 billion to Ush153 ($90 million) in the NRM parliamentary caucus presentation to the House by scrapping or reducing amounts attached to "unclear costs."
For example, Ush300 million ($176,000) that had been allocated for a State House visit by the Queen, Ush77 million ($45,000) for the Ministry of Water and Environment, and Ush31 million ($18,000) for Uganda Martyrs Shrine were scrapped, while another Ush465 million ($273,000) for spouses of heads of state was cut to Ush299 million ($175,000), Ush4.5 billion ($2.6 million) for beautification was cut to Ush2.7 billion ($1.58 million) and Ush7 billion ($4.1 million) for media and publicity was cut toUsh5.6 billion ($3.3 million).
Legislators said that some costs were "unclear" and suggested there were "double allocations" such as the money allocated for the Ministry of Water and Transport when the National Water and Sewerage Corporation had been allocated Ush1.3 billion ($764,000).
Prof Ogenga Latigo, leader of the opposition, said, "We were debating figures but the budget committee went and did the wrong assignment. What they did should have gone to the legal and constitutional committee." The other question that was raised in the earlier debate was the "emergency" nature of the request for funds.
Deputy Attorney General Freddie Ruhindi said that the request to spend on CHOGM activities as an emergency was comparable to a request to release funds abruptly to contain the foot and month disease that broke out last year.
However, Nandala Mafabi, the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee of parliament, said the government had known that it would host the meeting for four years now and therefore had no excuse for cornering parliament into authorising such huge sums of money to be spent in the two months ahead of CHOGM.
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