Government will next year borrow Shs 7.7 trillion from local commercial banks to finance its operations.

The biggest percentage of this money, Shs 6.2 trillion, will be used to repay money already borrowed from the same banks!

I think in ordinary borrowing language, this is what they call a top-up. You borrow more money in the same institution, repay the old loan and make the new money look like a fresh loan. In Luganda, this is called okutetenkanya (improvising).

Yes, that is what is going to happen next year! If you read page 15 of the National Budget Framework Paper 2017/18, this matter is well explained. First, money given to us by Europeans and, I think, Americans as budget support is reducing from Shs 926 billion in the current financial year to just Shs 33 billion next year.

And this reduction is mainly because of corruption. Instead, these development partners prefer directly spending their money on projects. That is why project support, which is a component of the budget now, has grown from Shs 6.5 trillion this financial year to Shs 7.9 trillion in the next budget.

The Shs 7.7 trillion that we will borrow and the Shs 7.9 trillion project support constitute half of next year’s Shs 30 trillion budget. Uganda Revenue Authority is expected to collect Shs 14.5 trillion next financial year. Government businesses such as rent, sale of water and tourism permits will fetch us just Shs 402 billion.

That is the budget we are busy processing in parliament. And wait, you will hear the freedom fighter declaring this an NRM achievement. Yet the biggest percentage of the budget will be used to repay our creditors.

We will pay Shs 6.2 trillion to commercial banks, Shs 915 billion to foreign lenders and another Shs 110 billion for supplies already consumed. When you remove the Shs 7.9 trillion donor money that will directly go to finance projects, government will have Shs 14 trillion to spend. Remember, our economy is no longer growing at 6.9 per cent, but at about 4.6 per cent. And these are official figures; the situation could be worse.

Failure to grow production, especially in agriculture which employs more than 60 percent of our population, remains the biggest failure of this regime.  Government agencies that should make a lot of money have either been sold, run down or handed to loyalists. Those that are doing well have attracted less investment because money is needed to buy out political opponents.

Just imagine if National Water and Sewerage Corporation was a private company; how much money would it make even without hiking prices? I actually think there is a higher return on money invested in NWSC than even in some road projects like the Nyakahita-Ibanda road that leads to no productive area other than the president’s village home.

I recently visited the minister for Lands, Betty Amongi, at her workplace and was shocked by the human traffic there. Amongi, with whom I shared a political science class at Makerere University, told me the traffic at her office makes her work sometimes from 7am to 7pm. Yet the services from the lands ministry are still poor.

To borrow money, some industrialists and traders require land titles, whose processing can take months, if not years. I asked Amongi why they are not introducing priority windows for such people. She said they were “working on it”.

I know raising land title-processing fees has been met with resistance. That is why it remains, I think, at about Shs 30,000. We can keep the price lower for the poor people and charge more from those industrialists and traders, but make it quicker.

If well-managed, the ministry of lands could fetch a trillion shillings for government. Instead, it is the employees there that are getting richer. They deliberately slow down processes so people can bribe them.

Processing of a passport is another opportunity for government. Why don’t we issue express passports within a day and make willing people pay more?
What I am saying is that we need a businesslike mind in government departments with well-spelt targets and deadlines.

In private companies, there are bonuses when such targets are met. Wasn’t that what the so-called kisanja hakuna muchezo meant to achieve? Instead, it has become a slogan for the next general election campaigns.

How on earth can a government generate just Shs 400 billion and expect to raise money for its operations only from citizens?

I think I have answered Maj Guma Gumisiriza who recently challenged MPs to propose more ways of raising revenue instead of grumbling on who takes what of the little available.

And that takes me to my last point, which I will expound on in a future article – begging and stealing. I hope you read an article in Daily Monitor about MPs extorting money from people looking for votes to join the East African Legislative Assembly (Eala). I sat with three contenders in the parliamentary canteen this week and will tell you their story next week.
      
semugs@yahoo.com

The author is Kira Municipality MP.