Overview:

Henry Musasizi, the Minister of State for Finance, told Parliament on Thursday that the revisions to the budget had been authorized by President Museveni,

The government of Uganda has revised its budget for the Financial Year 2024/25 from Shs58.34Trn to Shs72.12Trn.

 Of the Shs14.050Trn increment, Shs30.95Bn will be payment of emoluments of cultural leaders, while Shs25Bn will go towards capitalization of Vision Group which is currently experiencing financial distress, prompting the company to lay off several workers and halt operations of some of its subsidiaries like Urban TV.

The government has also proposed to enhance the UPDF to cater for several items like; Shs172Bn  for the purchase of food for the soldiers, while Shs230.16Bn will be used for the purchase of equipment for the Army, and Shs214.62Bn will be used for payment of wages and gratuity by the Ministry of Defence and Veteran Affairs.

Henry Musasizi, the Minister of State for Finance, told Parliament on Thursday that the revisions to the budget had been authorized by President Museveni, with the documents indicating the recurrent expenditure has increased to Shs13.502Trn up from Shs11.486Trn, while the development budget is also expected to increase from Shs13.722Trn to Shs15.585Trn.

The Ministry of Finance has also increased the amount of money it had earlier planned to borrow from the external market from Shs8.905Trn to now Shs10.977Trn, which is a Shs2.071Trn increment.

The government is planning to borrow Shs28.768Trn from local commercial banks to fund the Shs72.130Trn national budget, which is higher than the initial Shs15.436Trn the Government had proposed to borrow from the domestic market.

Once approved by Parliament, the move would likely increase the cost of capital as commercial banks prefer lending to the Government than the private sector.