


How does this nation manage its servants? Uganda's expenditure is very enormous and abnormal.

A presidential advisor and his deputy earn 908.5 million Ugandan shillings enough to pay 378 primary school teachers a salary of 200,000 Ugandan shillings a month.

Private presidential secretary and his assistant earn 7.5 billion shillings enough to; support 2,077 primary schools with 800 pupils each, buy drugs for 890 health centers, construct 935 classrooms or pay 37,500 primary school teachers. Members of Parliament altogether earn 57 billion excluding the allowances, the 69 ministers have all sorts of allowances and only government expenditure on Ministers vehicles fuel, oil and maintenance in 2006/07 was 92 billion Ugandan shillings.

In 1986, the National Resistance Movement came to power. It collected 84 billion as revenue. Inflation was at 240 percent. It worked tirelessly and revived the economy reducing inflation to 0.3 percent. The present government collects 4 trillion as revenue but sectors like education and health which used to be very vibrant are now in shambles.

This nation (Uganda)  has 31 million people. According to the ministry of health, there's one doctor to every 300,000 people. Surprisingly, there's one administrative leader to every 6 Ugandan. Uganda has one of the poorest administrative structures in the entire world. The poor administration can and only provides poor services to its citizens. The government at times makes good policies but it's very hard for them to be implemented leading to all these and many other deficiencies.

Policies like the decentralization policy to help distribute resources evenly, minimum health package which puts all health centers under a structured organization, Medium Term Expenditure Framework that makes the government budget and expenditure known after every 3 years, etc. are examples of some good policies which do exist only on paper but not in reality. Such good and "efficient" policies have been made by the government on paper yet over 600 billion Ugandan shillings go down the drain without any trace almost every single year.

The main reason why such good policies cannot be implemented in Uganda today is due to nothing but the government's huge expenditure on its top leaders and the very poor wages paid to its civil servants. This has led to absenteeism, lack of morale, etc. as most of these poor public servants do other jobs besides their regular jobs just to make ends meet.




Civil societies, great donors, private sector experts and political analysts have all raised numerous concerns over the governments expenditure on its administration but their pleas have fallen on deaf ears. Uganda as a country not only needs a budget discipline but also in great need of getting its priorities right and starting from the top seems like the most sensible thing to do especially at this time.

By OSCAR OTINDO (AfricaW Group Member)

The writer is a Kenyan volunteer and activist based in Nairobi, Kenya.