By Gladys Nanyombi
The ministry of fiancé, planning and economic development has on Monday presented the revised 2021/2022 Budget estimates of Shs44.7 trillion to the parliament budget committee for approval.
This means the revised 2021/22 budget has been increased by shs 3.48 trillion
According to the ministry of finance officials led by the minister, Matia Kasaija, and David Bahati the increase in expenditure by Ushs 3.48 trillion is an account of the increase in financing of the Judiciary, external financing including the purchase of the covid-19 vaccines of shs 480 Billion, increase in interest payments of Ushs 143.4 Billion, procuring more office space for parliamentarians and allocating more funds to national security among others.
Finance Minister Kasaija said government had not included shs 480b for the covid-19 vaccines in the initial budget because initiations to see if the vaccines should be included were under way.
“The money for covid-19 had not been included in the Budget by the time we tabled the budget in parliament on 1st April 2021 because the vaccines were still underway and now the government says we should buy our own vaccines so we had to include the covid-19 vaccines in the budget,” says minister Kasaija.
The minister revealed that the overall Resource Envelop for the Budget for FY 2021/2022 increased to shs 44.78 Trillion from shs 41.30 and he explained that the increase is based on the increase in project support, Domestic borrowing by Ushs 600.2b, and a slight increase in domestic revenue of Ushs 3 billion.
Minister Kasaija emphasized that tax policy for FY2021/2022 will focus on promoting investment and industrialization with a view to boost import substitution and export promotions.
According to the final budget allocation, human capital development now takes the big share with shs 7.7 trillion followed by governance and security with shs 6.9 trillion.
In the initial budget, Governance and security had the lion’s share but it has been reduced by 750b because the Judiciary and Legislature that were initially under it are now independent programs.
