Posted on May, 3, 2016 at 08:35 am
The budget increment that Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni promised the agricultural sector during election campaigns will not be effected in the 2016/17 financial year due to inadequate resources, according to the Finance Ministry.
During the campaigns earlier in the year, President Museveni had promised farmers that his government would increase funding for the agriculture sector to a minimum of $296 million in the 2016/17 budget.
But overall expenditure projections have increased from $7.1 billion in 2015/16 to $7.8 billion in 2016/2017.
Budget estimates show that agriculture has been allocated $207 million in the coming financial year, a mere $2.9 million increase from 2015/16.
The opposition, in an alternative policy proposal said that it had planned to allocate seven per cent — equivalent to $533 million — of the national budget to agriculture.
That amount, it argued, would come close to meeting the African Union heads of state Maputo agreement of 2002 to allocate at least 10 per cent of national budgetary resources to the agriculture sector.
“The funding gap in the Agriculture Ministry means the sector is operating at less than 50 per cent of its capacity,” said Francis Epetait, shadow minister for agriculture.
The Agriculture Committee of Parliament, which scrutinised the sector’s ministerial policy statement, said the Finance Ministry has the resources, but misallocates these to sectors that do not significantly increase productivity or transform the economy in general.
“The committee is right but they need to interact with the president so that they can reconcile the two positions. It is up to parliament and the Cabinet to decide,” Gabriel Ajedra, State Minister in charge of Finance and Planning at the Finance Ministry told The EastAfrican.
The national budget framework paper places emphasis on the promotion of value addition, enhancing human capital and quality public service delivery to facilitate private sector investments.
Mr Ajedra said increasing the budget allocation to the agriculture sector would mean cutting funding for other sectors, which would negatively impact service delivery.
In 2002, African countries signed the Maputo Declaration that aimed to revitalise the agriculture sector including livestock, forestry and fisheries through policies and strategies that targeted small-scale farmers.
These strategies involve improving soil fertility and conservation, water management, infrastructure and control of pests and diseases. To achieve this, heads of state agreed to allocate at least 10 per cent of national budgetary resources to agriculture within five years.
Today, Uganda allocates only three per cent of the national budget to agriculture. For the past seven years, the government has been allocating a lion’s share of the budget to the Ministry of Works and Transport, arguing that, when infrastructure is improved, farmers have access to markets.
Fred Muhumuza from the School of Economics at Makerere University said internal institutional weaknesses, land issues, ideology and political interference continue to let down the sector.
The Ministry of Finance recently revealed that some of the funds meant to promote agriculture in the coming financial year will be allocated to other government bodies such as Kampala Capital City Authority, which is expected to get $1.5 million. Other funds will go to the Peace Recovery and Development Plan and Northern Uganda Social Action Fund — both under the office of the Prime Minister.
Source: The East African