The Minister of Finance has revealed that the security sector budget will be doubled come next financial year, despite the budget cuts.
The remarks were made on Monday (April 19, 2021) during the presentation of the National Resource Envelope for the financial year 2021/ 2022 to the Parliament Budget Committee by officials from the Ministry of Finance led by Matia Kasaija, the Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development (MOFPED) and State Minister of Finance and Planning; David Bahati.
According to the Resource Envelope, the National Budget will see Governance and National Security taking the lion’s share of shs.7.7 Trillion which will compose of 30.4 % of the National Budget.
Minister Kasaija noted that next financial year’s budget was to focus on sustaining the recovery of the economy especially from the setbacks caused by Covid-19 and that this couldn’t be achieved without stable security.
This therefore called for the revamp of the security sector through a double allocation of 7.7 Trillion shillings from the 3.5 Trillion that was it (the sector) was allocated in the previous financial year.
“I saw what happened during from 1971-72. We want to make sure that people’s lives and property are secure,” Kasaija said.
Government has so far spent 1.4 trillion shillings in an effort to combat the spread of the global pandemic, Covid-19, in the country.
Minister Kasaija also said that the National Resource Envelope for the financial year 2021/2022 was now being projected at 41.3Trillion shillings away from the 45. 6 Trillion, earlier presented in the National Budget Frame Work Paper.
“The budget will now see a reduction of 4.36 Trillion shillings down from 45.6Trillion presented to parliament in the Nation Budget Frame Work Paper of financial year 2021 2022,” Kasaija said.
However, on the issue of the budget cut due to reduction in the external financing, the minster noted that the only dilemma was in revenue not moving as first as the expenditure but the only option to meet those expenditures was to borrow either internally or externally.
External financing has been reduced from 8.5 trillion to 3.9 trillion which the minister attributed to the realignment of different projects being implemented in the previous financial year.
State minister of finance and planning David Bahati also noted that security couldn’t be neglected and that the threats that the country was facing might not always be seen by civilians but detected by the security people.
The budget on the other hand will require the tax payer to incur the highest burden since the ministry projects domestic revenue to rise from 21.6 Trillion shillings to 22.4 Trillion in the next financial year.
The new budget is expected to be funded by mainly Domestic Revenue of 22.42 trillion shillings of which 20.83 trillion shillings is expected to be collected by the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), Budget Support of 3.58 trillion shillings, Project Support (External Funding) of 3.8trillion shillings and revenue from local government 212 billion shillings among others.
