Opposition government led by the leader of opposition (LOP) Joel Ssenyonyi has presented a Shs 43 Trillion Budget as alternative for the financial year 24/25 and prioritized health sector to take the lions share.
The human right based approach informed budget seeks to combat corruption and ensure efficient service delivery system which remain core if Uganda is to fully realize all humans rights needs.
“So we are saying we have got to combat corruption, we’ve got to make sure we efficiently avail services to the people of Uganda under the ambit of human rights because is a right for the people of uganda to access healthcare, proper education and all these rights have got to be taken care of and that’s why they pay taxes so that you, government can be able to meet these their needs.So it’s is an all encompassing human rights approach,”Ssenyonyi said.
The Alternative national budget was under the theme Fostering Resilient Communities by Combating Corruption and Promoting Efficient Service Delivery: A Human Rights – Based Approach to Resource Allocation
Ssenyonyi explains that while the finance minister will be focusing on presenting the governments’ priorities come June the next financial year, it was imperative that they, the opposition produced an alternative and that they prioritize included among others health care, education and the infrastructure.
In this he said government could actually alot more in such sectors and that this could be dealt with by Combating Corruption but also dealing with wastages which he said will enable government to deliver the much needed services as opposed to digging deeper into the pockets of the already struggling ugandans.
“The priorities we are looking at health care, we think a lot more needs to be invested there really and that money is available to develop even the education and infrastructure, He said. Adding, once we put to proper use what we have available, once you fight corruption and deal with wastages you won’t have to keep bothering ugandans to dig deeper in their already burdened pockets.”
According to the LoP the only challenge was that ugandans continue to pay taxes and yet see little when it comes to service delivery that most even opt for private sector services which attract more financial burdens and thus allocation on what they thought aught to be the priorities.
In the recent report from the Inspectorate of Government for example indicates that over Shs 10 trillion were lost in corruption.
Robert Kyagulanyi, President of National Unity Platform ( NUP) also present emphasized noting that as much as these alternative policies might be attractive, it would be impossible to achieve them if the leaders in charge of Ugandans resources can’t rise above their petty selfishness
” We must resist, we must reject, in fact, we must eject all forms of corruption in public administration otherwise, all this will be going to waste, our resources will continue sinking down the long drain of personal greed at the expense of our collective wellbeing and, at the lives of our people and children. As National Unity Platform, we shall continue taking decisive action in that regard,”he said
Ssenyonyi added, like in the previous times, even when their views are not picked up, atleast they had it on record and that they were showing Ugandans that this was the direction they would have taken if they had been in charge.
This year’s alternative budget however presented a decline from what was presented by the then LoP Mathias Mpuuga indicating a slump of Shs 6 Trillion of a Shs 49 Trillion though not so different from what was presented by the Ministry of Finance for the same financial year 23/24 of Shs 52 Trillion.
The National figures of Shs 52 Trillion were according to ssenyonyi exaggerated and not very realistic as he noted that a lot of times government wants to take advantage of the 3% that could be accessed outside parliamentary approval and that realistically if put to proper use the Shs 43 Trillion aligned with the national debt burden but also what is collected domestically instead of posing big figures that paint a different picture that government requires a lot of money which isn’t even present.
So let’s utilize this that we have that is realistic,” he said. Opposition however remains to provide oversight, produce alternatives but not to support, clarify, recommend or puch-up for government policies.
