Budget must serve as moment of truth

The discipline of state actors always melts, with many of them seemingly blind to the risks associated with a shrinking fiscal space. All indications are that the beat will go on, with consumptive areas like public administration weighing heavily on the taxpayer.

Already, our cash-strapped government appears to be impassive and resigned to the fate of Assistant Resident District Commissioners (RDCs) being added to the payroll. The creation of the post increasingly became the subject of snide remarks if anything because taxpayers already fund the wages of Deputy RDCs.

The question around what distinguishes an Assistant RDC from a Deputy RDC has gone unanswered because this is largely politics of patronage and clientelism. In fact, since the 2026 general elections are within eyeshot, we should expect Mr Kasaija to, sadly, deliver a recognisably pre-election budget tomorrow.

It is clear as daylight that the headwinds and tailwinds that are battering the economy have left Uganda at the crossroads. This dangerous juncture begs of budget wonks being alive to the economic and fiscal problems facing the country or of the conditions that will shape the next FY. That we should brace ourselves to expect, at worst, none or, at best, a tiny sliver of this is deeply troubling. 

That notwithstanding; we insist that tomorrow’s budget should not be shot through with the recognition of the benefits of being politically expedient. If it needs to be spelled out, we are living in interesting times that have little or no room for expediency. Yet patronage and clientelism continue to feel horribly pertinent to the present moment.

The judiciary structure is on the verge of being expanded when in fact it should be made leaner. Elsewhere, an attempt at the rationalisation of government agencies and public expenditure or Rapex appears to have suffered a stillbirth. Such actions should be met with much scepticism. We can ill afford acting like ours is a sea of abundance when in fact it is just an oasis.

It is therefore a cruel disappointment for budget wonks to pepper the budget with classic election giveaways. Whereas a number of such giveaways have been rewarded with victory at the polls, the formidably difficult circumstances we are facing ask us to rise above selfish interests. This is a period of lack; not plenty that we find ourselves in the midst of.

With concessional loans from the Global North precipitously drying up, supposedly because of enactment of an anti-gay law, we cannot operate as if it is business as usual.

The more straitened economic times occasioned by the pandemic’s aftermath as well as other geopolitical factors beg of us to be more judicious. Short of that, we will continue holding out to what to many seems inevitable—a ballooning public debt stock.