CSOs Punch Holes in the Budget Framework Paper for FY 2025/26

Jan 13, 2025 - 07:37
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CSOs Punch Holes in the Budget Framework Paper for FY 2025/26

The Civil Society Organizations under their umbrella, the Civil Society Budget Advocacy Group (CSBAG) have gathered in kampala at PELUM offices to share their perspectives on the National Budget Framework Paper (NBFP) for financial year 2025/26.

 

 

The Budget Framework Paper was anchored under the theme, "Full Monetization of the Ugandan Economy through Commercial Agriculture, Industrialization, Expanding and Broadening Services, Digital Transformation and Market Access".

 

 

Sunday, member CSOs described the importance of enhancing investments, strengthening policies and good governance to effectively ensure high yield from Agrifood systems.

 

Others matters of importance included the Misalignment of the FY 2025/2026 budget with the NDP IV, Inadequate allocation to settle domestic arrears, Rising Cost of Education in non-government-aided non-UPE and USE government grant-aided and private schools, dilapidated and inadequate infrastructure in UPE Schools, low Staffing Levels in Public Health Facilities, rising vulnerability of Uganda’s food safety and quality.

 

The Increased encroachment of wetlands, Poor/Sub-optimal funding for the Community-Based Services Departments in Local Governments, Inadequate financing of District Disaster Management Committees and the limited financing of Renewable energy sub-programme in local governments,

 

 

 

Mr. Lawrence Kanakulya, Programme’s Officer in charge of Advocacy at PELUM emphasized the need to adopt sustainable practices through conserving resources, protecting the ecosystem, and ensuring long-term production as stipulated in the Kampala CAADP declaration.

 

“The Kampala declaration commits to increasing Agrifood output by 45% by 2035 through the adoption of sustainable agriculture practices” said Kanakulya.

 

He also called upon the government to allocate funding to sustainable agriculture approaches such as agroecology and organic farming to enhance food security, environmental health and community resiliency.

 

“Increased funding will support ecosystems, drive social economic development and improve livelihoods of farmers across the continent” he added.

 

Mr. Pascal Muhangi an Economist at CSBAG commenting on the budget framework paper for fy2025/26 said that though there has been considerations of key priority areas in the NDP IV, government need to keep in plan the contribution of enabling factors that need to be financed too such as infrastructure, fight against corruption among others. Such will support attainment of the desired growth, he noted.

 

Muhangi, while describing the inflation status mentioned how there is need to maintain the current inflation rates which he said is still under 5%, without being affected by the forthcoming election period which is expected to bring fluctuations.

 

 

Meanwhile Richard Mugenyi raised concerns in the low staffing levels in health facilities in Uganda which he said need to be boosted to reach WHO standard on health labour. He said there is a gap of over 200,000 health staff needing more 151,000.

 

Benjamin Mwibo Benjamin Mwibo is a talented, passionate and creative journalist with a commitment to high quality out put that is factual and researched. Above all Dedicated with a strong desire to identify the truth of the matter.