Women members of parliament have spoken out of their expectations of the new financial year budget that is due to be read today by the finance minister. The Women MP hopes to see government increase funding to Energy, Agriculture, Education and Health sectors in the new financial year budget.
Huda Oleru, the woman Member of Parliament Yumbe district says that her expectations have already been lowered since the health sector didn’t feature in the state of the Nations address. According to Huda, government should have addressed the nodding disease, measles and immunization.
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Evelyn Kabuule, the Luuka Woman MP is still expecting some positive outcome for the teachers and in the health budget. As a member of the Parliamentary Social Services committee, Kabuule notes that the two sectors of education and health deserve more attention from government. She says teachers deserve a 30 percent pay rise.
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According to the budget framework paper 2012/2013 ministry of health is faced with budget cuts. The health sector budget is projected to reduce by 52.7 billion shillings. This would bring the total budgetary allocation to the sector to 761.6 billion shillings down from 814.3 billion shillings it was allocated in last year’s budget.
This means that of the entire budget projection the health sector will account to 8% of the resource envelope falling short of the Abuja Declaration target of 15% of the resources envelope. Jovah Kamateeka, the Mitooma Woman MP and Margaret Babadiri, the MP Koboko are equally concerned about the health sector where maternal health subsector falls.
They say there is need for the recruitment of more health workers and increased funding to curb deaths in health centers. Kamateeka is concerned that donors have been making an effort urging the government to make more strides towards the provision of better health services to mothers and their newly born babies.
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Uganda’s headline inflation for the year ending May 2012 reduced to 18.6% down from the revised 20.0% registered for the year ended April 2012. The figure is still far from the single digit inflation target set by Bank of Uganda. The decline is attributed to the marginal reductions in food and core inflation as indicated by Uganda Bureau of Statistics in May. The entire resource envelop is projected to be 10.6 trillion shillings. Energy, transport and education are the major priorities.
