The parliament’s committee on defence and internal affairs on Friday turned away officials from the ministry of Defence and Veteran Affairs from a meeting to scrutinize their budget framework paper following a mismatch of figures.

The unceremonious sendoff marked the second time in two days that the ministry of Defence officials were being sent away over the same national budget framework paper for the FY 2023/2024.

Initially, on Thursday, the same officials led by Defense minister Vincent Ssempijja were turned away for not availing copies of their documents on time for the committee MPs led by Rosemary Nyakikongoro to review.

Their initial documents indicated that the ministry was in need of Shs 6.515 trillion out of which only Shs 3.560 trillion had been availed in the coming FY 2023/2024. However, soon Ssempijja amended the figure revealing that the ministry was in need of Shs 8.769 trillion and that only Shs 3.545 trillion had been approved by the ministry of Finance, creating a deficit of Shs 5.356 trillion 

Drama ensued when Nyakikongoro, discovered that scrutiny between the committee and parliament technical team unearthed inconsistencies in the budget for the ministry. Consequently, Nyakikongoro tasked Edith Buturo, the Defense ministry’s undersecretary to explain the inconsistencies.

Later, this prompted the legislators on the Committee to ask the ministry of Defence to vacate their room and first harmonise their figures before rescheduling another a third meeting in the afternoon.

Minister Ssempijja had listed a number of unfunded items that included; wages that require Shs 1.579 trillion, yet only Shs 617.9 billion has been availed, creating a shortfall of Shs 961.9 billion for the army to grapple with.

The minister also pointed out that army is seeking Shs 314.1 billion for domestic arrears, Shs 21.5 billion for operation Shujja in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and Shs 27.5 billion for the pacification of Karamoja region but no allocations were made.

Also, medical services remained unfunded to a tune of Shs 39.2 billion which the ministry hasn’t paid to private hospitals yet Shs 54.7 billion is needed for the purpose but only Shs 15.5 billion was availed. The ministry is also seeking Shs 3.441 trillion in classified expenditure, but only Shs 2.158 trillion was availed, leaving another unplugged gap of Shs 1.282 trillion.

More documents scrutinized by URN further reveal that the army is in need of Shs 280.2 billion for food, whereas only Shs 130.6 billion was availed, leaving a funding gap of Shs 149.6 billion, as well as Shs 106.7 billion needed for fuel storage facilities but no funds were allocated.

On December 23, 2022, the ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development tabled before parliament the national budget framework paper totaling up Shs 49.9 trillion.  As required by the Public Finance Management Act of 2015, parliament is bound to approve the budgets for different Ministries, Departments and Agencies by February 1. By URN, The Observer