The swearing in Budget for President Museveni Yoweri Museveni has swollen from 3 to 3.8 billion shillings. The new budget was tabled before parliament by officers from the office of the president behind closed doors after Rose Akol, the budget committee chairperson asked journalists to move out to the lobby.
Sources that attended the meeting told URN, that presidency minister Beatrice Wabudeya asked parliament to pass the shillings 3.8 billion revised budget.
Wabudeya allegedly explained to the committee members that the budget had been revised from shillings 3 billion to shillings 3.8 billion to cater for fuel worth shillings 252 million, 60 million for protocol and unspecified amount fir security.
She also said that over shillings 100 million is needed to improve the guard rails, road cabs, mausoleums and the steps at Kololo air strip. Sources say that the finance ministry says only shillings 3 billion can be released for the function because of the tight resource envelopes.
However, some legislators want the budget reduced to shillings 2.5 billion arguing that the amount is too exorbitant. Addressing journalists shortly after the closed door meeting Wabudeya defended the budget saying that commodity prices have shot up.
In 2006, the presidential inauguration ceremony cost 2 billion shillings. The number of invited dignitaries has also gone up. To her the amount is not exorbitant.
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So far 32 heads of states and 19 dignitaries have been invited to the function. Barnabas Tinkasimire wants Wabudeya to revise the figure to 2.5billion shillings.
He finds it ironical that with the double digits inflation which stand at 11%, government was able to revise the figures as people continue to suffer.
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MPs also want the 62.5 million shillings to be scrapped from the budget. This money was meant to cater for the organizing committees of the ceremony.
Legislators argued that the members of these 19 committees are already getting salaries and allowances.
Geoffrey Ekanya says that the infrastructure provided during the heads of States government meeting would be enough to cater for the visiting heads of States.
According to the breakdown budget by the Minister for presidency, one billion shillings would be used for accommodation. But legislators want this money revised down to 300 million because government has 25% shares at the Munyonyo Commonwealth Resort.
The 3.8 billion shillings is part of a supplementary budget Ministry of Finance tabled last week in parliament requesting for an additional 151.6 billion shillings for recurrent, statutory and development expenditures.
The supplementary budget comes two months after another supplementary budget of over 600 billion shillings. This was done amid controversy that the ruling party was to expend the money on election campaigns.
