Salient features in government’s reports to parliament

This week, we received one report and two speeches that were presented to parliament: report on the background to the budget for 2011/2012 fiscal year; Museveni’s address to parliament; and budget speech to parliament delivered by the minister of finance on behalf of the president. This is an annual exercise. The mandate, criteria used and data selected have distorted or omitted vital information.

1. The mandate of the background report to the budget is to highlight priorities of the coming national budget in the context of key economic trends and recent performance of government programs. The president’s mandate is to report what was done in the last twelve months and to appraise members of parliament of plans and strategies for the next twelve months. The mandate in the budget speech is to present to parliament estimates of revenue and expenditure for the financial year. Thus, in the three documents there is no specific mandate for reporting on the impact of government programs on ecological and human conditions such as soil erosion, poverty and malnutrition reduction. This is a serious shortcoming since development should be sustainable and human-centered.

Is Uganda’s national unity idea dead?

When the National Resistance Movement (NRM) came to power in 1986, it had a clear domestic and external policy message which was compressed into the ten-point program. It was a program that had been based on compromise with national unity in mind which became a cornerstone in Uganda’s development discourse in the early years of the NRM administration.

Earlier, the late Grace Ibingira had written about the absence of national consciousness in Uganda brought about by the retention or intensification of ethnic differences during the colonial period. He observed that “Since the colonial system kept them alive through indirect rule and the policy of minimal inter-ethnic contact, the idea of Britain bequeathing a new state uniting all the divergent groups with a government of nationalist politicians from different groups, some historically enemies, generated intense fear in the country, most especially among the group that had more to lose, the Baganda” (G. S. Ibingira 1980).