The Ministry of Finance, Planning, and Economic Development has released Shs4.974 trillion for the third quarter of the financial year 2023/24.
According to the Permanent Secretary and Secretary to the Treasury, Ramathan Ggoobi, the funds will cater for critical capital expenditures, including people’s salaries, gratuities, pensions, security-related expenditures, and social sectors such as health and education.
“Shs90.211 billion has been provided to National Medical Stores to meet the obligations for the purchase of essential drugs and medicines, and Shs57.955 billion to referral hospitals and cancer and heart institutes,” he said.
Shs336.3 billion has been provided to kick-start the process of ensuring the renewal of the National IDs project (Shs192 billion). Recently, Rosemary Kisembo, the Executive Director of the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA), said the renewals of IDs were scheduled to start in August 2023 up to August 2025, targeting 17.2 million citizens who have never been registered and 20 million Ugandans who wish to renew their national IDs.
Kisembo is short of Shs666.85 billion, which is needed to start the exercise. In the same way, Shs144.3 billion has been released towards the purchase of tablets that will be used in the National Population Census and other votes.
“Shs550.859 billion has been released for the operations of security institutions, i.e., the Ministry of Defense (Shs403.082 billion), Police (Shs71.374 billion), Prisons (Shs41.427 billion), ISO, and ESO (Shs34.975 billion). Shs1.912 trillion, or 26.2% of the wage budget, has been provided based on payments made in the first half of the financial year,” Ggoobi said.
He said Shs117.567 billion was given to educational institutions, including the Ministry of Education and Sports (Shs28.076 billion to cater to instructional materials, student loan schemes, and examination bodies), public universities, UMI and LDC (Shs84.537 billion), and UBTEB (Shs4. 594 billion) for supervising, conducting, and managing exams.
Shs230 billion has been released for statutory votes in Parliament (Shs150.962 billion), the Electoral Commission (Shs9.459 billion), and the Judiciary (Shs44.88 billion), among others. Shs296.578 billion has been released for pension and gratuity for quarter three. This includes the requirement for pensions and gratuities for local governments.
Shs249.294 billion has been released for local government grants, including a capitation grant of Shs136.5 billion to ensure the timely opening of the first school term.
