Vision Group to run analyses of national budget since 1986

New Vision and other Vision Group platforms will dig into and analyse all the budget speeches since 1986.

The 1986/87 financial year budget was the first budget tabled by the National Resistance Movement (NRM) government, presented after taking over power at the end of the five-year guerrilla war that toppled the Obote II and Tito Okello regimes.

The 1986/1987 budget totalled sh1.1 trillion, which is 40 times smaller than the sh40 trillion-2019/2020 budget.

According to Betty Musoke, the manager of the Vision Group resource centre, all the budget speeches since 1986 will be available on the New Vision website starting Monday.

There will also be analyses of the issues that were highlighted in the successive budgets. The budgets show the major economic issues the country has been grappling with over the years.

"The analyses will focus on different sector priorities and allocations over time, noting what the persistent budget issues have been and how they have been dealt with," Musoke added.

Paul Busharizi, New Vision contributing editor for business and politics, said the series will run in phases.

"After uploading all the budgets from 1986/1987 to 2018/2019 on the website, we shall provide deeper analysis of each budget until the 2019/2020 budget speech," he explained.

For 13 years, Vision Group has been hosting a budget panel discussion where experts analyse the budget. File Photo

"We shall provide analysis of each budget, what the priorities were and how the breakdown of each budget was," Busharizi elaborated.

This, he noted, will give an indication of the Government's priorities for development at different times. Busharizi said the budget series will run on the New Vision website, in the newspaper and on Urban TV. He said since 1986, a lot has changed.

"By 1986, we were exporting $380m worth of goods and services. Now exports have grown to $6.2b worth of goods and services," Busharizi said.

"At that time, inflation was at 240%. Now we are talking of below 5% inflation rate, which is a big difference," he added.

The budget series will climax with the New Vision's chief executive officer's budget panel discussion on Budget Day.

For 13 years, Vision Group has been hosting the budget panel discussion, during which experts analyse the budget as soon as it is delivered.