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Behind the ruling party’s ‘wish to capture’ budget from government
President Museveni with Janet and VP Edward Ssekandi and other NRM MPs in Kyankwanzi in January. The President has proposed that he chairs the NRM sub-committee on the budget, with Mr Ssekandi as his deputy. PHOTO BY FAISWAL KASIRYE
What you need to know:
Talk in the corridors of Parliament suggests that the Kyankwanzi resolution to take over control of the National Budget was prompted by the unsustainable accumulation of unfulfilled presidential pledges.
As an NRM parliamentary caucus subcommittee sets out into uncharted waters with a view to putting together a draft of the national budget, opposition legislators and some ruling party MPs are protesting the process they describe as an “illegality” that calls for a constitutional interpretation.
There are also new fears that this is yet another indication that President Museveni is still hell-bent on fusing his political party with the State by unilaterally ascribing to it functions which are prescribed under the Constitution as being the preserve of State organs.
It could end up with a petition being lodged at the Constitutional Court if ongoing consultations between those opposed to the move agree among themselves and make a pronouncement on whether it is lawful for the NRM party to write the budget or it’s a clever move to withdraw the budgeting process from Parliament oversight.
Questioning presidential order
Members of the opposition are also questioning the directive by President Museveni to facilitate the NRM caucus team. Who is paying the allowances of the members of the so-called sub-committee? They ask.
Speaking to the Sunday Monitor in separate interviews, the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, Mr Nandala Mafabi and Shadow Attorney General Abdu Katuntu, said they would soon petition court to seek an interpretation on whether the NRM can exercise the mandate to write the budget, which they said is the function of particular technical wings in the Ministry of Finance and at Parliament.
Mr Mafabi said: “It’s true we are going to petition the Constitutional Court to make an interpretation on this. A national budget is prepared by technocrats not politicians. Those NRM MPs are not professionals in the areas of budgeting. The NRM MPs are not the ones to write the budget because they know nothing. The country has lost direction; the world over, politicians have never prepared the budget,” Mr Mafabi said.
Mr Katuntu explained that the NRM, as a partisan entity, is acting outside the law since it has no mandate to summon civil servants, who are of the State, to appear before them.
Unconstitutional move?
“For civil servants to begin explaining themselves before the party is clearly unconstitutional. It simply means that the NRM party has overthrown the NRM government. What the NRM is doing is acting outside its own government. It has no right to summon civil servants. Civil servants are answerable to government not to the NRM and I expect civil servants to resist this. We cannot act outside government.”
He said the Parliamentary Budget Committee is mandated by the law to handle the budgeting process.
“The [budget] committee is after all chaired by an NRM MP with majority members belonging to NRM. It is the only committee mandated by the law to handle budgetary issues. The NRM party can only influence the budget process through state organs which they control.
“Civil servants are answerable to government departments and agencies because they are professionals and well-schooled in economic management. Those pretending to be drawing up the budget on behalf of the civil servants are being busy bodies,” said Mr Katuntu.
Mr Museveni, however, will find comfort in Deputy Secretary to Treasury, Keith Muhakanizi‘s opinion. Mr Muhakanizi told the Sunday Monitor that the process being followed is not illegal since the budget preparation is no longer a secret of the ministry of Finance “but available for public discussion”.
“The budget for this year was written last year and the NRM party is only playing an advisory role like we get input from various stakeholders such as local governments and civil society. The difference is that the NRM party is now more organised and they want to see where to reflect their priorities. Anybody can advise the President,” he said.
“We are very happy and ready to discuss the budget with whoever turns up,” said Mr Muhakanizi.
By law, the ministry of Finance is supposed to produce the budget framework paper by April 1.
But Parliamentary commissioner Chris Baryomunsi maintains that the deputy secretary’s reading of situation is flawed.
He said that whereas in principle it is okay for the ruling party to have its manifesto translated into the National Budget, the party secretariat should work out a mechanism on how this is communicated to the political heads of ministries and local governments so that when the budgeting process is in its initial stages, it accommodates the manifesto pledges.
Detached sub-committee
“The stand alone committee is detached from the institutions which originate the budget,” Dr Baryomunsi said. In his interpretation, Deputy Attorney General Fredrick Ruhindi, told this newspaper on line from Germany that his party was merely making a contribution to the National Budget, and that any other party is free to do the same.
“I see no problem with it and I have seen no illegality with it. The NRM party is not supplanting but is supplementing and making a contribution to the National Budget which to me is legal. Why are some MPs opposed to what the NRM is doing? There are many procedures followed in the process. We encourage other contributions,” he said.
Mr Stephen Mukitale (Buliisa MP), one of the members on Mr Museveni’s budget committee observed that they are aligning the national budget to the National Development Plan and the party manifesto and that they have set out priorities.
Critics, however, wonder what the NRM party is up to and whether previous budgets were not NRM budgets.
Why now?
Talk in the corridors of Parliament suggests that the Kyankwanzi resolution agreed upon during the NRM parliamentary caucus retreat in mid-January was prompted by the unsustainable accumulation of unfulfilled presidential pledges. These un-kept promises, it is said, have dented the image of the party and reflect very poorly on the President.
The Sunday Monitor was informed that the ruling party leadership has been unsettled by the fact that Ugandans have woken up to the reality that this government continues to fail to deliver on its promises. Proponents of this view say it is hoped that giving the impression that the party was not really in charge of setting out budget priorities in the past, and as such blaming failure on the technocrats at finance, could save the President.
Sources say that the President has become alive to possibility that if he decided to run again for office in 2016, the question of unfulfilled pledges could come back to haunt his campaign.
24-man committee
In Kyankwanzi, the President announced the creation of a 24-person sub-committee to be chaired by himself with Vice President Edward Ssekandi as his deputy. MPs Tim Lwanga, Amos Lugoloobi, Evelyn Naome Kabule, Rose Akol, Stephen Mukitale, Remigio Achia and Martin Drito were named on it. In a follow-up communication in a recent letter seen by the Sunday Monitor, Mr Museveni indicated that this committee will be facilitated by the ministry of Finance.
Mr Patrick Nakabale, the caucus secretary general, said there has been a weakness in relying on civil servants.
“We are fulfilling the people’s contract as promised in the manifesto. Informed by the Kyankwanzi resolution and basing on the reality that the NRM party was elected into power by the people, it is important the party delivers as it promised to Ugandans.
NRM hence decided to participate in the primary resources allocation,” the Youth MP for Central Region said.
He said the party will deliver the budget estimates to the Finance Minister who would then deliver them to Parliament. Ms Justine Lumumba, the government Chief Whip, said: “We are coming in at the initial stages and we want to avoid a situation of leaving the budgeting process to the technical people and civil servants at the ministry of Finance because they are not answerable to any Ugandans. Cabinet has been getting the National Budget at the end after those technical people have set the priorities.”
Ms Lumumba, however, did not comment on the fact that at every budget reading the President has been at pains to emphasise that monies are always allocated to sectors based on where the government felt the country’s priorities lay.
Attempts by the government to, in essence, hijack the budgeting process from itself began in earnest last year.
First, it introduced the proposed Public Finance Bill, 2012, currently before the Parliamentary Finance committee, which seeks to among others repeal the Budget Act 2001.The Budget Act, 2001, if repealed would allow government have the final say on the budget and severely limit Parliament’s role in the process.
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Changing Budget Act would mean...
The Budget Act, 2001, established the Parliamentary Budget Office whose objective was to create technical capacity within Parliament to interpret the national budget and economic data.
The same office is also mandated to provide Parliament and its committees with objective, timely and independent analysis needed for national economic and budgetary legislative decisions.
If the Act is repealed, the Budget Office’s fate would hang in balance. Also, the scrapping of the Act would render the Budget Committee redundant. In the face of feverish attempts by the government to repeal the Budget Act since last year, there is proof that the Budget Office has improved accountability and efficiency.
Prior to that law coming into existence, Parliament did not play an active role in the budget formulation process. Parliament was a mere rubberstamp, endorsing what was laid before it without the ability to re-direct finances to more deserving sectors. The information provided to Parliament was also inadequate.
That unhappy situation was brought to an end when former minister of state for regional cooperation Isaac Musumba, working closely with former MP Beatrice Kiraso (both backbenchers and leading voices in the National Economy committee at the time), brought a private members’ Bill which laid out how Parliament could become more effective in demanding accountability from the government. The point was to amplify the House’s constitutionally recognised oversight role and to enable MPs influence the direction of the economy and social development policies in the country.
Article 155 of the Constitution clearly outlines the mandate of Parliament in the budgeting process. For example at any time before Parliament considers estimates of revenues and expenditure laid before it by, or on the authority of the President, an appropriate committee of Parliament may discuss and review the estimates and make appropriate recommendations to Parliament.
MPs point out that nowhere does the supreme law of the land break down that provision by saying the ruling party of a sitting government shall have a more pronounced role in the budgeting process.
The ministry of Finance and Parliament are currently consulting over the proposed Public Finance Bill. There has been spirited disagreement on key clauses. The Speaker of Parliament, Ms Rebecca Kadaga, last year appealed to legislators to resist attempts by the ministry of Finance to repeal the Budget Act, 2001 through the Public Finance Bill, warning Parliament would be rendered irrelevant in the budgeting process.
Ms Kadaga said the proposal would erode Parliament’s constitutional role.
Mr Theodore Ssekikubo (Lwemiyaga, NRM) also warns that “Whatever the NRM is doing is not in good taste. They are writing the budget outside the law and outside the Constitution.
I hope it remains as a working document. It is very unconstitutional and only seeking to render the established institution and the laid down procedure of government irrelevant. It’s a disgrace to the Constitution, the Budget Act and the Finance Act.”
“I call upon them to desist from this unconstitutional and illegal path. There is no reason why you can turn a national budget into a party budget because you are legitimising the party takeover of the State. Parties and the government come and go but Uganda with its pillars [of State] remains.
It is a desperate effort at fulfilling endless presidential pledges. Wild pledges and promises glorified his manifesto and he is caught up in his own pledges.”
