Finance ministry reforms to improve service delivery
“The Budget Discipline and Accountability Charter has five clear, non-negotiable rules and automatic sanctions,” writes Apollo Munghinda
Apollo Munghinda. (File)
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OPINION
By Apollo Munghinda
In the Budget speech for FY 2026/27, the finance minister, Henry Musasizi, announced key implementation reforms required for Uganda to achieve her goal of building a 500-billion-dollar economy by 2040.
The minister said implementing the Tenfold Growth Strategy will require discipline, accountability, efficiency and integrity if government is to eliminate wastage, corruption, delays and inefficiency in budget execution.
It is against this background that the finance ministry has embarked on implementing a ‘clean-up’ exercise by enforcing laws and regulations to ensure all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and local governments (LGs) demonstrate efficiency and effectiveness in budget execution.
The specific reforms aimed at improving service delivery and public trust have been carefully identified, and they include enforcement of budget discipline and accountability, combating corruption through procurement reforms, strengthening allocative efficiency by prioritising high-impact investments under the ATMS and enablers, as well as centralising the management of counterpart funding under the Treasury to safeguard funding for priority projects.
The permanent secretary and secretary to the treasury, Dr Ramathan Ggoobi, in the Budget Execution Circular for FY 2026/27 informed all accounting officers about the implementation of these reforms with a strong warning that budget execution games will no longer be tolerated.
To guard against these games and other identified weaknesses, the finance ministry has signed the Budget Discipline and Accountability Charter with all accounting officers. The Charter has five clear, non-negotiable rules and automatic sanctions.
Rule number 1 states that if there is no budget, then there should be no commitment by government. This means that no expenditure will be allowed without an approved budget and verified cash limits.
Rule number 2 is about supplementary budgets. These are exceptional, capped at 3% of a vote’s budget and cannot fix poor planning. Internal reallocations must be considered first before supplementary expenditure is requested.
Rule number 3 establishes zero tolerance for domestic arrears. Accounting officers shall not accumulate new arrears. All bills must be paid within the statutory and contractual timelines.
Rule number 4 stipulates that going forward, for projects to be accepted in the Public Investment Plan and budget, they must have approved feasibility studies, costed designs and funding plans.
Rule number 5 instructs accounting officers not to recruit staff if there is no wage provision. Recruitment will require an approved wage provision, a costed recruitment schedule and clearance to recruit from both the Ministry of Public Service and the ministry of finance.
To combat corruption in public procurement, reforms are progressing well through the scaling of the Electronic Government Procurement (e-GP) system, the digital platform for managing the entire public procurement and disposal process electronically.
From the initial 36 entities, an additional 100 entities have been brought on board effective this financial year to improve efficiency, reduce the cost of doing business, and also enhance transparency and accountability in procurement procedures and practices.
The upgraded e-GP system is also integrated with other systems, including PBS for budgeting, NSSF, NITAU, URA, NIRA, URSB and IFMS. Complete roll-out in all the 441 entities is expected by 2029.
As part of the reforms, common-user items, such as vehicles, IT equipment and tyres will, going forward, be procured jointly using national framework agreements.
At the finance ministry, we are optimistic that these reforms will protect the credibility of the budget and ensure that the resources entrusted to us by the people of Uganda translates into schools we all desire, health centres stocked with medicines and staff, good roads and safe water, in addition to creating jobs and wealth for Ugandans.
We, therefore, call upon all stakeholders to respect the approved budget allocations and support the execution of the budget in line with the approved work plans, outputs and expenditure limits.
The writer is the principal communications officer at the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development