By Kaleb Yiiki

Arua

Arua District council, passed a total budget of Nineteen Billion, Nine hundred Forty Two Million forty six thousand Ugandan Shillings (19,942,046,000) with amendments to be expended in the 2023/2024 Financial year.

This is a drop compared to the previous financial year 2022/2023 where, the District council approved a total budget of, Thirty Seven Billion, Four Hundred Eleven Million, Fifty Five Thousand Ugandan Shillings (37,411,055,000).

The Items on the Order paper adopted for approval by the Council that sat on 30^th May 2023 included: Arua District Proposed Budget 2023/2024 Financial Year, Proposed Annual Work plan 2023/2024, Proposed Procurement plan 2023/2024 and a Five Year Revenue Enhancement plan and charging policy 2023/2024 – 2027/2028.

Local Revenue Sources Identified include: advertisement through Billboards, animals and crop husbandry related levies, Business Licenses, Court Filing Fees, Land Fees, Local Hotel Tax, Local Service Payable by Divisions, Market and Gate Charges, Miscellaneous receipts and Income, Parking fees, Public convenience Registration Fee for Documents and Businesses, Rent on needs, Produce assets, sale of Agricultural products and services by private enterprises, sale of non-produce government Assets, Vehicle Parking Fees, etc.

The Revenue Sources from Central Government Transfers Identified include: District Discretional operationalization Development Grant, District Unconditional Non-Wage Grant, District Unconditional Grant Wage, Conditional Government Transfers including program conditional Grant Non-Wage recurrent, program conditional Grant development, program conditional Grant wage recurrent, transitional conditional Grant development.

Other Government Transfers are: Agriculture Cluster Development Project (ACDP), The Development Response to Displacement Impacts Project (DRDIP) project, infectious Disease Institute (IDI), National Oil Seed Project, Neglected Tropical Disease (NTD), and Northern Uganda Social Action Fund (NUSAF), Results BASED Financing (RBF), Support to PLE UNEB, Uganda Multi-sectorial Food Security and Nutrition Project, Uganda Road Fund and Uganda Women Entrepreneurship Empowerment Project (UWEP).

Meanwhile External Financing from development partners Identified include: Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), Global fund for HIV, TB Malaria, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), World Food program (WFP) and World health Organization (WHO).


Drateru Natallia debating on the Budget

While debating on the Budget Presentation, some Counselors faulted the Technical wing of the District for foul play in not considering the Committee level recommendations. Among these Counsellors is Drateru Natalia, the Female Counselor representing the women of Arivu Sub County who cited several areas where the recommendations of the different departmental Committees were not considered. She said that her committee for social services recommended that there should be budget line for the secretary community services, which shall be an independent department. “We picked only three hundred thousand from labor unconditional grant out of two million five Hundred to cater for the budget line but this has not been considered on the draft Budget and our ideas have not appeared on the Final Draft Copy of the Budget.” She decries.   


Secretary Finance Solomon Anguzu presenting Budget Framework paper

Solomon Anguzu, the Secretary Finance and planning for Arua District Council gives the detailed  budget allocations for the different departments  for the 2023/2024 Financial Year for Arua District with the Priority given to education (45%), followed by Health (22.8%), and Roads (7.27%).

SUMMARY OF THE BUDGET FINANCIAL YEAR 2022/2023

SNO	DEPARTMENT	ALLOCATIONS	PERCENTAGE
1	ADMINISTRATION	2,123,274,000	10.65
2	FINANCE	227,500,000	1.14
3	STATUTORY	357,102,000	1.79
4	PRODUCTION & MARKETING	603,890,000	3.03
5	HEALTH	4,560,026,000	22.87
6	EDUCATION	9,037,053,000	45.32
7	ROADS	1,450,419,000	7.27
8	WATER	638,920,000	3.20
9	NATURAL RESOURCE	259,339,000	1.30
10	COMMUNITY SERVICE	452,456,000	2.27
11	PLANNING	150,318,000	0.75
12	INTERNAL AUDIT	32,765,000	0.16
13	TRADE AND INDUSTRY	47,074,000	0.24
	Total	19,942,042,000	100.00

 

Meanwhile Alred Okuonzi, the District Chairman says there is still room to make Changes up to the point the Budget is uploaded on the Financial Planning System.

He also calls for Vigilance from the Political Wing in Local Revenue collections by warning those involved in tempering with Local Revenue to desist from it with immediate effect. He however reveals that with the new Digital system put in place, the local Revenue collection will be submitted directly into the system and this will help reduce the temptation of tampering with Money on transit from sub counties to the district headquarters for deposits. “For me as Chairman, I am going to make sure that with the Chief Administrative officer (CAO) and the District Executive Committee(DEC) Members, that the aspect of monitoring and evaluation is looked at critically, because it is already an audit query on the District that many projects are not monitored because there is inadequate budget financing allocated for it.” He promised.  

The CAO Arua District, Mark Jude Bukenya, apologized for the inconsistencies in the printed draft Budget for approval by the Council but promised to clean his house. “Fellow councilors, I am going to consider all your requests, more especially on monitoring and Committee fees.” He assured the Council.


CAO Arua District Mark Jude Bukenya Making Commitment
 
In order to ensure that all the interests are considered in the ceremonially passed budget, Arua District Speaker, Lawino Buatre, charged the technical team to call all the Sectorial committees to verify the Budget before it being uploaded onto the national Budget. “Once you have completed the amendments, print out the budget and call us to verify whether the entries are correct.” She Recommends.

The Resident District Commissioner (RDC) Arua, Okiswa Godfrey, urged the Technocrats in the District to commit to their Work they are paid for. He continued to say that he is going to employ scientific methods of monitoring Government programs since he did not come to fight against any technocrat. “Technocrats must be committed to their work and they must cease from being indifferent so that the services are provided for the People in Arua District without discrimination. 

Arua District’s 2023/ 2024 Budget Runs on the theme of the National Budget Framework Paper for which is "Full Monetization of the Ugandan Economy through Commercial Agriculture, Industrialization, Expanding and Broadening Services, Digital Transformation and Market Access".

COVER PHOTO: RDC Addressing the Councillors By Kaleb Yiiki