President Museveni (inset) has over the years created several agencies with duplicated roles of his ministries. PHOTOS/ FILE
The government says this key cost-cutting rationalisation of government agencies would save the country more than Shs1 trillion annually. However, Opposition lawmakers say the President should also rationalise State House units and Cabinet.
The government has passionately pushed for the merger of government agencies, commissions, and authorities.
The government has argued that the measure aims to reduce the high cost of public expenditures, cutting redundancies, and duplication of functions in ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).
The State argues that the allowances and salaries eat up the bulk of the budget for government agencies.
The government says this key cost-cutting rationalisation of government agencies would save the country more than Shs1 trillion annually.
Inconsistency?
Contrarily, the government has created or has maintained several units under the State House that duplicate work of other statutory government departments and agencies.
Relatedly, the cost of public administration has ballooned, with the Cabinet swelling from 68 in 2001 to 80 ministers currently.
Correspondingly, a minority report presented in January 2024 by Members of Parliament on the report of the budget committee on the national budget framework paper FinancialYear (FY) 2024/2025-2028/2029, shows the country has more than 139 presidential advisors, with 43 of them earning above Shs6m each, while the rest earn in the range of Shs4m to Shs2.3m.
But officials from the Office of the President, where these advisers directly fall, said the number of senior presidential advisors may be correct, however, they insisted the wage bill as presented by Kira Municipality MP Ibrahim Ssemujju was inflated.
Hajj Yunus Kakande, the permanent secretary in the Office of the President, Told Daily Monitor in September this year that the list had been concocted by members of the Opposition to tarnish the image of government as extravagant.
“The number might be true but the names are not entirely correct, some names appearing on the list do not exist. There is no one getting Shs28m. It is Prof [Gilbert] Bukenya, [Dr] Ruhakana Rugunda and [former Vice president and now senior presidential advisor on Buganda Affairs Prof Edward] Ssekandi who are getting Shs20m each,” he said.
LoP Joel Ssenyonyi
Hajj Kakande, who had appeared before the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament, said the advisors are given benefits in line with the Public Service ministry regulations.
Some of the presidential advisers benefit from government-paid office spaces at Kingdom Kampala building in the heart of Kampala City.
All of these units under the State House are better funded and equipped than those in government ministries, departments, and agencies mandated by law to carry out the functions.
Cherry picking?
But Mr Joel Ssenyonyi, the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, who held a press conference at Parliament after the rationalisation debate last Friday, said President Museveni was speaking one thing on rationalisation and doing the opposite.
“If the President is serious about cutting down on government expenses, why does he always create new districts and new constituencies as we head for elections? Why does he have a bloated Cabinet? Why are there so many Presidential Advisors? Why do we have so many RDCs [resident district commissioners], Deputy RDCs and now Assistant Deputy RDCs? That is a lie. Stop fooling the people of Uganda. I want to challenge the President, stop preaching water and then you drink wine,” Mr Ssenyonyi said.
President Museveni has over the years established the State House Anti-Corruption Unit, State House Investors Protection Unit, State House Revenue Intelligence and Strategic Operations Unit,
Operation Wealth Creation, State House Land Protection Unit, and State House Government Citizen Interaction Centre.
The others are the Uganda Media Centre, Presidential Initiative on Banana Industrial Development, Presidential Advisory Committee on Exports and Industrial Development (PACEID), and Infrastructure Monitoring Unit.
Duplication of functions
The State House Anti-Corruption Unit, which was established in December 2018, was to coordinate “citizens’ corruption complaints to the presidency with the population and the constitutionally mandated agencies—with a view to obtaining a speedy resolution to these complaints.”
In due course, the unit has been duplicating the duties of the Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) and the Inspectorate of Government.
Most of their investigators are detectives from the CID, who travel from
Kampala City to upcountry stations in fuel-guzzling vehicles to handle even minor criminal cases like theft and forceful entry that a station CID commander in a district would be competent to handle effectively and cheaply.
Recently, the President established the State House Revenue Intelligence and Strategic Operations Unit, headed by Mr David Kalemera, to oversee Uganda Revenue Authority operations and fight corruption within the tax administration system.
The unit’s tasks aren’t any different from those of the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) and its supervising ministry, the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development.
One of the two cases that the unit has handled squarely falls under URA tasks.
In a statement, the unit alleged that a local company that had misclassified poultry and animal feeds concentrates had caused a loss of Shs100b revenue.
The unit officials visited the company premises and seized three containers of suspected misclassified concentrates, but they had to turn to URA to investigate the matter.
In a statement, the State House Revenue Intelligence and Strategic Operations Unit, said: “Uganda Revenue Authority has been formally informed of this intervention.”
President Museveni (left) leads the anti-corruption walk in 2019. He has since created many agencies in the name of fighting corruption. PHOTO/PPU
In another case, the new URA intelligence unit said its personnel had intercepted an under-declared weight of a container for imported used clothes.
“We have urged @URAuganda to focus more on weight bridge tickets and enhance physical verifications. This will help ensure that all imports are properly accounted for and that fair competition is upheld within the sector,” the unit said in a statement on X, formerly twitter, last month.
The URA’s anti-smuggling unit comprises the army, the police and other experts that target tax-related corruption within and out the agency, and tax cheats.
State House counters Mr Sandor Walusimbi, the senior press secretary to the President, was
unwilling to discuss why the President is maintaining parallel units yet he is pressing to dissolve others in the name of cutting costs through eliminating role duplication and trimming man power and saving costs.
“What do these units in the State House have to do with the rationalisation that is being debated? Let us focus on the President’s message on UCDA (Uganda Coffee Development Authority) rationalisation,”he said yesterday.
Mr Walusimbi said if the removal or retaining of the State House units comes up for debate, they would be willing to have an input.
Nonetheless, while on the Spectrum Extra programme show on Radio One recently, Mr Muwanga Kivumbi, the chairman of Buganda Parliamentary Caucus, said rationalisation is a good thing, but what is happening is cherry picking.
“If the President wants to be believed, he should have started on the easy things that don’t require them going to Parliament. You need a decree, executive order to remove them. Why should you have four RDCs in one district where you have an elected [local council] chairman and District Internal Security Organisation?” Mr Kivumbi asked.
He said most of these units are getting their funding from the State House classified budget.
“State House should be an official home of the President. It shouldn’t run classified budgets; it should not run other things like innovations. If you want them, take them to the Office of the President,”Mr Kivumbi said.
Unlike government agencies that are mandated to show accountability to their mother ministries, the Parliament and their reports made public, State House units operate in secrecy and their budgets, recruitment and their expenditure details aren’t known.
Mr Kivumbi said much of the money is abused under the cover of classified budget. He said of the Shs72 trillion national Budget this financial year, at least Shs5 trillion will be spent in classified expenditure.
Mr Kivumbi said classified budgets are the second highest contributor of hemorrhage of Uganda government funds after loan management.
“The biggest abuser of classified budgets is Mr Museveni,” he said.
This financial year, the State House is to spend Shs81b under the classified budget while Shs136b will be spent on donations. The total expenditure on the two items is five times the annual budget of Uganda Coffee Development Authority, which is Shs45b, but the entity has been dissolved and its functions incorporated into the ministry of Agriculture ostensibly to save costs.
