President Yoweri Museveni and the National Resistance Movement (NRM) parliamentary caucus have developed a strategy for merging and rationalizing a total of 33 government entities.

They reached an agreement during a meeting at State House Entebbe on Friday (February 2) at a meeting hosted by Museveni, the Chairman of NRM

The meeting was  to discuss  the rationalisation of government agencies and public expenditure.

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Denis Obua, the Government Chief Whip, said in a brief statement that they resolved as a caucus to support rationalisation of agencies and public expenditure through the enactment of legislation in Parliament, sector by sector.

Obua, who is also the caucus chairperson, said this was after MPs had received, internalized and exhaustively discussed Museveni's keynote address as party national chairman.

Last year, Parliament led by the Speaker, Anita Among, rejected the Rationalisation of Government Agencies (Repeals and Amendments) Bill, 2023, which had sought to either scrap or return the 33 agencies to mother ministries as a long-term solution to untenable cost of public administration and wasteful expenditure.

Denis Obua, the Government Chief Whip

The Speaker instead advised the Government to table separate Bills, repealing each of the affected departments and agencies.

MPs and several analysts argued that the omnibus Bill was uncalled for since all the affected entities were created by different Acts of Parliament and scrutinized by different sectoral committees of the House.

Obua said on Friday that MPs were "conscious of the strategic subject of rationalisation of government agencies and public expenditure".

He also said they resolved to support the Government plan having further received a presentation on rationalisation of government agencies and public expenditure by the ministerr of public service.

Government has extended the plan to rationalise its agencies thrice after it met resistance.

Government embarked on the rationalisation process following a September 10, 2018 Cabinet decision to merge or collapse more than these agencies and commissions.

However, the process has since resulted in layoffs and petitions from affected workers.

The Government wants to cut costs and improve efficiency.

Minister for Presidency Milly Babirye Babalanda

Latest audit report

The Auditor General, John Muwanga, has underscored the wastefulness and inappropriateness of supplementary budgets in his latest audit report to Parliament for the financial year ended June 30, 2023.

Muwanga revealed that Uganda’s total public debt stood at sh96.168 trillion as of June 2023 and that it is growing at a higher rate than the gross domestic product (GDP).

He said the sh96.168 trillion comprises domestic debt stock of sh43.696 trillion (45.4%) and the external debt stock of sh52.472 trillion (sh54.6%).

He also noted that there has been a consistent increase in the total debt as evidenced by an increase of 107% in the five years from 2018/19 of sh46 trillion to sh96.168 trillion as at June 30, 2023.

Relatedly, he said, the GDP grew from sh132.09 trillion in 2018/2019 to sh184.89 trillion in 2022/23 in the same period, representing an increase of sh52.805 trillion (39.98%).

“This implies that the public debt is growing at a higher rate than GDP. The increase in the debt is due to increased Government expenditure compared to the domestic revenue to finance the fiscal deficit,” he wrote.

Muwanga also said the major driver of the external debt growth is to finance the budget (budget support), warning that under the circumstances, the servicing of public debt may not be sustainable in the short and medium term, if not checked.