The Executive Director of the Civil Society Budget Advocacy Group (CSBAG), Julius Mukunda has appealed to stakeholders and other Ugandans to take urgency in studying the budget framework paper for the financial year 2025/26 that is yet to be released.
Mukunda says this will help them take critical analysis to point out any gaps that would put the country’s public resources at risk.
He highlighted unethical budget process practices like abuse of the corrigenda that led to sporadic increase in the budget from shs 52.73 trillion in the Financial Year 2023/24 to shs 72.13 trillion for the Financial Year 2024/25, corruption within the Government payroll where over shs 7 billion has been lost to ghost workers and shs 88 billion lost to irregular and overpayments, according to the Auditor General’s report of 2023.
Mukunda believes that collaborative efforts to study the budget Framework Paper early enough with fact based citizen actions; the existing institutions can reduce the abuse of the country’s public resources.
Meanwhile Civil Society Organizations say the growing threats and increasing vulnerabilities in the financial sector is as a result of the Government’s failure to appoint the Central Bank Governor for the last three years.
This has been disclosed by Mukunda in the end of year press briefing at the CSBAG offices at Ntinda, Kampala, saying that the Central Bank plays a critical role in overseeing and regulating financial institutions, ensuring their stability and the public’s trust in the financial system and without the Governor there is a significant leadership void that hampers effective oversight, governance and response to emerging financial threats such as rising incidences of cybercrime and operational lapses in the banking sector.
Mukunda says that such threats highlight the critical need for a competent and active Central Bank Governor to restore oversight, enforce regulatory measures and improver cyber security within Uganda’s financial sector.
His comments come at a time after unknown people through cyber attacks allegedly stole shs 62 billion from Bank of Uganda accounts though most of this money has been recovered according to the Michael Atingi-Ego, the Deputy Governor Bank of Uganda.
By Olivia Nabaggala
18 Dec 2024
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