With the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic currently afflicting the country, experts have urged the government to cut unnecessary expenditure, arguing that the economy is once again expected to take a nasty hit from the global pandemic.
Ramathan Ggoobi, a lecturer of economics at Makerere University Business School, says it will be hard for the government to realise the revenue mobilisation targets set in the coming budget, meaning, therefore, that the Government must be frugal in expenditure.
“I don’t think we should be expecting URA to collect all that money when there is almost no activity in the economy. Therefore, we must exercise caution in spending, and begin by cutting out all wasteful expenses,” he says.
Julius Mukunda, the executive director of Civil Society Budget Advocacy Group (CSBAG), says in this pandemic, the first thing Gov’t needs to do is revisit the budget, cut all the unnecessary expenditures and channel all the funds towards fighting against the COVID 19 pandemic.
“Remove the funding for foreign trips, special meals and clothes, and channel such money towards the fight against COVID-19. Our budget should be turned to fighting COVID-19. Testing should be made free so there is massing testing. People are walking around with the sickness & spreading it more simply because they can’t afford the testing charges,” he states.
According to Mukunda, vaccination is a game changer & if we are not able to acquire the vaccine and vaccinate the people, the lockdown will keep extending.
Julius Kapwepwe, the Programs Director at Uganda Debt Network (UDN) says COVID-19 has warned for one and a half years but, the government still complains about the same challenges.
“We then need to change our approach, and interventions should be quick.”
According to the February 2021 Bank of Uganda monetary policy report, government’s fi scal operations were constrained on the back of the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to slow execution of planned infrastructural projects. Due to the pandemic effects, the Government was forced to revise the revenue collection target for 2020/21 from 21.8 trillion (14.3%) of GDP to 19.6 trillion