Why doesn't Kadaga come to parliament anymore? - Ssemujju Nganda

Kira Municipality member of parliament (MP) Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda questioned the continued absence of Kadaga from the House.

Besides the ministry of East African Affairs, other ministries yet to submit their policy statements are: Foreign Affairs, Trade, Industry and Cooperatives, Ministry of Tourism and the Auditor General’s Office.

The Deputy Speaker Anita Among has already directed the heads of the ministries in question to explain in writing why they have not submitted their policy statements as required by law.

To take his question a notch further, Ssemujju asked Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja why she has failed to ensure that Kadaga attends parliamentary sittings as required by the rules of procedure.

Nabbanja did not respond to Ssemujju.

A month ago, parliament completed the official task of studying the nitty gritty of the Budget Framework Paper (draft national budget) through its sectoral committees.

According to Uganda’s parliament, sectoral committees are departmentally related committees, whose composition is determined at the start of each new session.

Each departmentally related committee consists of not less than 15 and not more than 30 members selected by the Business Committee from a list provided by the different Party Whips.

Each of the sectoral committees presented a report to the Parliament Budget Committee led by Kachumbala County MP Patrick Opolot Isiagi. The said committees’ report contains a number of proposals concerning their sectors.

The Budget Committee, in the Parliament Conference, harmonised the proposals contained in the committees’ report and finalised a joint report with a set of proposals.

Thereafter, Budget Committee’s proposals were debated and passed during a plenary session.

According to section 9 (8) of the Public Finance Management Act, Parliament was required to have approved the Budget Framework Paper by 1^st February.

The draft national budget the executive presented to parliament for scrutiny is of Shs 43trillion with sh25.5trillion expected to come from government revenue collections and the remainder is expected to come from internal and external borrowing.

This done through what is known as deficit financing, which is defined as government's funding of its expenditure through borrowing.

Prior to this, the finance ministry released money for ministries and other government entities to use in the third quarter of the current financial year to cater for expenditures for the months of January, February and March 2022.

The funds released include capitation grants for both primary and secondary schools. Primary and secondary schools resumed studies two weeks ago.

As in other financial years, the finance ministry has been releasing the shs44.7trillion national budget for the 2021/2022 financial year on a quarterly basis.

The Secretary to the Treasury Ramathan Ggoobi advised all accounting officers in the different ministries and other government entities to prioritise payment of salaries, pension, gratuity, rent, and utilities.

Last year, legislators approved a shs44.7 trillion budget for the 2021/2022 financial year, which decreased by shs714 billion for the first time compared to the approved resource envelope of 2020/2021.