DETAILS: Shs 638Bn Separate Supplementary Plan Smuggled into Parliament During Coronavirus Budget Stampede

Parliament on Tuesday evening hastily passed nearly a trillion shillings supplementary (additional) budget of 2019/2020, two months to the closure of the Financial Year, without a debate.

Understandably, Shs 304bn supplementary to combat COVID-19 required urgent consideration in accordance with the House Rules.

However, Shs 638.9bn was for the usual sectors; Office of the President, Ministry of Defense (UPDF) and others.

The COVID-19 supplementary budget was read on Thursday last week but its passing was deferred to Tuesday and indeed Members of Parliament went prepared for it only to be surprised by the addition of the one of Shs 638.9bn.

The presentation of both the majority report, by the Budget Committee Chairperson Amos Lugolobi of Njeru County, and minority (opposing) report by Gerald Karuhanga of Ntungamo municipality were concluded minutes after 6PM when members were obviously scampering to exit the House to avoid the 7pm curfew.

At the end, a total sum of Shs 932.8bn was uncharacteristically passed without a debate.

Details

On March 3 2O2O Minister of Finance, Matia Kasaija laid on the floor of Parliament, for approval, supplementary expenditure request of Shs 662.337bn to enhance the 2019/2020 budget.

Two weeks later, Finance Minister returned on March 19 with an addendum (addition) pushing the supplementary to Shs 749.8bn. The committee offset Shs 90bn allocated to State House, Shs 6.98bn allocated to Office of the Prime Minister and Shs 4bn for Office of the President (Land Inquiry Commission) under the 3% legal provision, leaving a balance of Shs 638,9bn requiring prior parliamentary approval.

Part of Shs 638.9bn supplementary budget breakdown. Source: Budget Committee of Parliament

On March 31, when the country was already under transport shutdown and registered multiple cases of COVID-19, Kasaija returned to Parliament with the second addendum asking for Shs 284Bn to cater for the Government interventions in combating the Pandemic.

Ministry of Health had already spent Shs 20bn, putting the total at Shs 304bn.

The money is picked from the Euro 600m (Shs 2.5tn) loan acquired by Government to provide budget support for FY 2OI9/2O20.

A number of activities as originally projected under the fourth quarter will not be implemented owing to COVID- 19 and this has provided the fiscal space for funding the emergency supplementary expenditure.

The Shs 638.9bn, different from the COVID-19 supplementary, has been allocated to seven ministries and dozens of government departments, agencies, universities, districts and others. Ministry of Defence took the lion’s share of Shs 458bn.