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By Godwin Abedican Arua Arua city on Thursday 30th May 2024, approved a budget of Forty nine billion four hundred sixty nine million three hundred five thousand five hundred ninety seven (49,469,305,597) shillings as the indicative planning figure for the fina
By Godwin Abedican
Arua
Arua city on Thursday 30th May 2024, approved a budget of Forty nine billion four hundred sixty nine million three hundred five thousand five hundred ninety seven (49,469,305,597) shillings as the indicative planning figure for the financial year 2024/2025.
The budget is set to be implemented, under the theme, “Full monetization of Uganda’s economy through commercial agriculture, industrialization, expanding and broadening services, digital transformation and market access.
As per the budget education department took the biggest share with 51.7 percent of the budget while Audit took the least share of the budget with an allocation of 0.2 percent of the total budget.
Summary of Departmental allocations
Department Allocation (Shillings) Percentages(%) Administration 5,508,595,099 11 Finance 856,968,921 1.7 Statutory bodies 856,111,595 1.8 Production and marketing 1,120,908,326 2.3 Health 5,673,292,476 11.5 Education and sports 25,551,920,449 51.7 Works and technical services 4,378,775,448 8.9 Natural resources 8,35,909,297 1.7 Physical planning 198,889,526 0.4 Community service and gender 301,312,744 0.6 Planning projects and grants 294,780,312 0.6 Audit 103,874,289 0.2 Trade and industry 194,457,337 0.4 Transfer for divisions 3,480,511,742 7.2 Grand total 49,469,305,597 100
However, a number of councilors were left unhappy as they raised concerns over irregularities in the budget process
Hon. Simon Enatu the male youth representative in the city council regrets the limited time allocated for the councilors to understand the budget “We just received these documents as we were entering inside, it really bets my understanding. We have seen this practice over time in this august house we have talked about it but still there is no improvement.,” he said angrily.
According to Hon. Anguyo Godfrey the city councilor for Ayivu Constituency North raises concerns that, the leadership of the council always under-looks the efforts of councilors during budget processes “The budget is brought few seconds to the start if the council. What does this imply? It means that the previous proposals might remain as they have been. Someone might temper and alter figures to be presented for approval or even new budget lines may be smuggled in the house. Hon. Anguyo warned.
Charles Asiki, the former Mayor of the then Arua Municipality in his view says, budget implementations must not be dependent on revenue sources that the city is not independently in control of. “It is on them on how to raise the money and how to get the money. What they need to be very sure of is what they are going to get themselves. You canst plan on what the government is going to say am going to give you. It might not work,” Asiki stressed.
Out the total budget over 43 billion is expected to be received from the Central Government as locally generated revenue will cater for 6 billion shillings of the total budget.
COVER PHOTO: Arua city councilors during the budget sitting By Godwin Abedican