Trade ministry budget hanging in the balance

Mr Mwine Mpaka, the chairperson of the Committee on Trade, said the impasse will only be broken when action is taken against Ms Geraldine Ssali, the Trade ministry’s Permanent Secretary (PS).

During a meeting between the two parliamentary committees this week, Mr Patrick Isiagi—the chairperson of the Budget Committee—unsuccessfully made a pitch that PS Ssali’s issue be back-burnered.

“If we say we stop planning for that ministry because the accounting officer wasn’t removed yesterday, how will it happen when the other year comes and she isn’t the accounting officer?” Mr Isiagi offered, adding, “We are going to ask you to go ahead with the budget framework paper on the strategy of the Ministry of Trade.”

Mr Mpaka, however, told Sunday Monitor after the meeting that “as a committee we will wait for the decision that will be taken by the committee of the whole House because it is beyond us.” 

He also disclosed that the collective decision of the House on the mismanagement of funds extended to cooperatives, which was also captured in the Auditor General’s latest report, could yet prove to be decisive.

“If the House says we appropriate, then we shall appropriate; but as a committee for now we unanimously agreed to stay pending that decision,” Mr Mpaka said.

He added: “The committee agreed to stay [that budget] because once these reports are adopted by the entire House then they are no longer reports of the committee.”

Mr Mpaka received support from lawmakers across the political divide. Mr Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda, the Kira Municipality lawmaker, for instance said there is need to “understand the issues in the sector.”

Mr Elijah Mushemeza, the Sheema South lawmaker, was even more direct. He said: “The issue of accountability in that ministry is a very serious issue, leading to a crisis. We are at the beginning of the budget crisis, we are sounding an alarm, and we are saying that even Parliament is under contempt and we are saying this alarm needs to be recorded and this is why we had to bring the issues here.”

The stakes
The Trade ministry has unfunded priorities of up to Shs500 billion. The Finance ministry allocated about Shs105 billion, which means that it requires at least one trillion to finance its budget.

The position not to appropriate was first taken last week when Trade minister Francis Mwebesa, Ms Harriet Ntabazi, the junior Industry minister, and a team of technocrats from the ministry appeared before the committee. 

The team hoped to defend the ministry’s budget, but soon ran into strong headwinds.
“You are only going to get salaries from this committee in the next financial year … we shall take this to the floor,” Mr Mpaka bluntly said, adding that the ministerial policy statements would also yield “zero allocations.”

The MPs accused the executive of refusal to implement key decisions, among them the recommended dismissal of PS Ssali who the committee red-flagged last year in a report of “an inquiry into the status, governance, resourcing, and value for money for public funds allocated to cooperatives during the period of Financial Year 2011/12 to 2022/2023.”

The aforesaid report centres around the payments to cooperatives for losses incurred as a result of the liberation wars of 1978-1979 and 1980-1986. The 210-page report revealed that PS Ssali’s husband, Mr Victor Busuulwa, allegedly irregularly received under a billion shillings. That was part of money that had been paid to Bwavumpologoma Growers Cooperative Union Limited.

“The Committee has found, in several incidents, your accounting officer unfit and recommended investigations be done,” Mr Mpaka told Minister Mwebesa last week.
The position remained unchanged by last Wednesday.

Justification
Mr Mpaka said it was his committee that presented before the House the report that unearthed accountability issues. This, he further opined, makes it difficult for the same committee to appropriate funds to be managed by “someone whose financial management skills have been found wanting.”

The House Trade Committee chairperson also alleged that unnamed persons had been trying to arm-twist him into revisiting the decision in regard to the ministry’s budget. He, however, hastened to add that nothing like that would be happening any time soon.

“We are being intimidated. They are making several calls, but as the chairperson, I represent the views of the committee and not my personal views, otherwise we would have for example have a minority report saying otherwise but all the members agreed and I am just there to represent their interests and their decisions,” he said.

The process
Procedurally, ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) are required to prepare, present and defend their Budget Framework Papers for new FYs before their respective House committees for scrutiny. In this process, the lawmakers premise on the justification tendered in by overseers at the various MDAs to either retain or strike out particular items together with attached budget estimates.

Once okayed, the respective House Committee prepares a final report containing the final decisions taken about various budget items of the given MDA. It is this that is presented to the House Budget Committee. It is from such submissions that the budget committee distills the final ingredients that inform the final contents of the National Budget Draft contained in the Budget Report.

This report is later presented to the entire House during a plenary sitting steered by the Speaker or Deputy Speaker for final deliberations before lawmakers take a final vote and or appropriate funds to various MDAs.

The document agreed to on the floor of Parliament forms the National Budget which unveiled a state function following the State of the Nation Address.