Government plans to freeze new loans, hires and pay rise alongside spending on workshops and applying breaks on foreign travels of its officials in the new financial year as part of austerity measures to plug funding deficits and reverse rising debt servicing burdens .

Jobs or pay rise in civil /public service have to wait longer, at least for a year. The ministry of finance permanent secretary Ramathan Ggoobi broke the news amidst the graduation of thousands at the Makerere university Kampala.

“There will be no new borrowing next financial year and this shall continue over the short-to-medium term so as to minimize the share of Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) revenues being used to service debt in the medium term so as to make more resources available to finance critical development priorities of government,” Mr Ggoobi wrote.

According to the circular , government is expected to save up to 108.5B  from the ban on abroad travels , workshops and other non essential expenditures. Mr. Ggoobi decreed that overseas trips will be bankrolled for only the heads and deputies of the three branches of government; executive, parliament and judiciary. Other officials  traveling for critical security, resource mobilization and case arbitration assignments ẃill also be exempted from the decree .

“I think the budget call circular is one of the kind we have not seen in for quite some time. First of all, it’s really responding to the current crisis we are in and also it is drawing from the lessons of the past, but at the same time it’s addressing the cries of the civil society,” Mr Julius Mukunda, the executive director of Civil Society Budget Advocacy Group (CSBAG) said.

A budget call circular is an official government document that specifies the framework and technical procedure for preparation , submission of revenue and expenditure estimates for the next financial year.

The senior Medical doctors on the other hand have not taken the news well. Earlier on the government had a sect of employers it had promised salary rise, that all comes to a stand still however with the Circular. The doctors have promised to put their tools down.

“However, despite providing critical manpower to the hospitals amidst challenges of inadequate medical supplies and sundries, the SHOs haven’t been paid their allowances … with some as far [back] as October 2022,” the graduate doctors noted in a statement, recalling their protracted fight for the pay.

Uganda’s public debt  is at SHs 86.6trillion as of June 2022, according to the auditor general report for financial year 2021/2022 and rising.

courtesy photo