By Alice Lubwama
The budget committee of parliament has directed the ministry of finance to present documents indicating closing balance from under utilized funds of all sectors returned to the consolidated fund.
Although the director for budget at the ministry of finance Kenneth Mugambe tried to convince members how the issue of unspent balance will not arise due to revenue shortfall, the chairperson of the committee also Ntenjeru North mp Amos Lugolobi noted that it has become a habit for the finance ministry not to declare the money that was not used by various government sectors at the end of the financial year as required by the law.
They don’t want to declare the funds, yet the balance has to be carried forward in the new financial year to be added to the revenue Uganda revenue authority is to raise.
"We need to know the closing balance at the end of every financial year and opening balance upon which we raise tax revenues and start borrowing.”
The committee is also concerned about the resources given to different government institutions from donors, which is not appropriated by parliament. The committee chaired by mp Lugolobi has also ordered the ministry of finance officials led by the state minister for planning David Bahati to declare all off budget funds in the budget, to avoid double spending on the item.
"The effect of that is corruption and this is un acceptable, we need to know how much we are expecting to which agency and which output is the money going to be spent. The budget committee has been looking at the annual budget performance report for the financial year 2017/2018.