Public debt to increase by 2.5% ahead of Shs52.7trn 2023/24 national budget passing
According to the report, public debt in the first half of 2021/23 FY was Shs78.7 trillion ($20.98b) and in the current FY 2022/2023, it is at Shs80.7 trillion ($21.74b).
The Budget Committee report presented by Chairperson, Patrick Isiagi Opolot, has indicated that public debt is projected to increase by 2.5% in the financial year 2023/2024.
According to the report, public debt in the first half of 2021/23 FY was Shs78.7 trillion ($20.98b) and in the current FY 2022/2023, it is at Shs80.7 trillion ($21.74b).
The MP said out of this, Shs47.7 trillion ($2.85b) is external debt representing 59.1% of the total public debt while 40.9% of the debt totalling Shs33 trillion ($8.89b) is domestic debt.
“Government should be committed to fiscal discipline to minimise deviations from the projected path. To this end, the government should ensure that over the medium term, borrowing is limited to critical projects while minimising acquisition of the debt on non-concessional terms,” reads part of the recommendations.
With the National Budget expected to be passed by Parliament and read by the Minister of Finance on June 14, 2023, this website has cited some of the key strategic priorities for the next financial year.
- Peace and security.
- Maintenance of both tarmac and murram roads.
- Construction of power substations and transmission lines.
- Acquisition of right of way and starting the construction of Standard Gauge Railway.
- Construction of small-scale solar-powered irrigation.
- Building infrastructure and connecting them to electricity.
- Funding the Parish Development Model (PDM) and Emyooga.
- Oil and Gas Development.
- Capitalisation of Uganda Development Bank (UDB) and Uganda Development Corporation (UDC).
- Support to ICT development.
In yesterday’s plenary, the government set June 14th as the date for reading the National budget with its estimated to have increased to 52.7 trillion shillings.
The budget’s increase came up to Shs.52.7 trillion from Shs.51 trillion after the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development presented a corrigendum (additional budget) of Shs.800 billion.
