THE PROPOSED 2019/2O GOVERNMENT BUDGET:The salient features of the Fifth Phase Government

Thursday of last week, the 13th day of June 2019; was “Budget day” for all the six countries that together constitute the members of the East African Community. That was the day when the Finance Ministers of these countries, simultaneously presented their respective Governments’ Budget proposals before their countries’ Legislatures. This is in accordance with “The Treaty for the Establishment of the East African Community”, which provides that “the annual estimates for the revenues and expenditures of all the partner States shall be introduced simultaneously in their respective Legislatures”. That is to say, on the same day, and at the same time. The partner States subsequently agreed that the chosen day for this event shall be a Thursday, and the chosen time shall be four o’clock in the afternoon.        

         But article 55 (1) of the Constitution of the Republic of Uganda, requires that their country’s budget proposals must be presented to the National Assembly not later than the 15th day of June. That is what explains why this year’s budget day was the 13th day of June 2019, and last year’s budget day was June 14th. In other words, it is always the last Thursday just before the Ugandan Constitutional deadline of June 15th.

The fourth budget of the Fifth Phase Government.                        

This will be the fourth budget of the Fifth Phase Government of President John Pombe Magufuli. The following day, the local Kiswahili language print media was awash with front page headline news relating to that budget. These included: “Bajeti ya kishindo” (MAJIRA); “Bajeti ya Kujitegemea”; (HABARI LEO); “Bajeti ya Wananchi” (MWANANCHI); and “Bajeti Funga Kazi” (UHURU).     

This apparent jubilation by the local media was presumably based on the positive contents of the Finance Minister’s speech to Parliament.  For it had revealed a number of welcome reliefs which will be offered to a variety of beneficiaries, including prospective investors, and other people engaged in business activities,  by proposing to review an assortment of related fees and levies, with a view to either reducing them, or even abolishing some of them (those which were described as “trade nuisance fees)”.  Plus the announcement of certain tax amnesties on products that are meant to promote Agriculture and local industries, such as imported packaging material for horticultural products, which will help the relevant farmers to get better prices for their produce; and the imposition of tax increases on specified imported products, in order to encourage the establishment and growth of local industries.                           

It was, no doubt, a good budget; which promises to increase considerably the confidence of many people in their Government’s satisfactory performances. And that, of course, is the basic political goal of all Government budgets.

The Salient features of the Fifth Phase Government budgets.

Perhaps the most notable features are the ‘structure’ and the ‘size’ of the proposed budget.  “Structure” in this context refers to the money appropriations, or allocations, to the various recipient sectors, while “size” means the total amount of money which will be spent during the coming financial year which, in this case, is a whopping 33.11 trillion. Actually, the size of the budget has been rising steadily from shillings 24.49 trillion in FY 2015/2016 (the last financial year of his predecessor in office). It quickly climbed to shillings 29.54 trillion in FY 2016/17 (the first budget of the Fifth Phase Government), and on to shillings 31.71 in FY2017/18. But climbed further to shillings 32.48 in the current financial year (the third budget); to shillings 32.48 trillion this coming financial year.  

Kudos to the Fifth Phase Government for this unprecedented achievement in its revenue collection effort6s. And with regard to the “structure” of its budgets, it is worth noting that the ratio between foreign sourced and locally sourced development funds; a substantial 37% of the total budget for 2019/20,  has been allocated to development, out of which the much larger portion of shillings 9.7 trillion will be sourced domestically; and only  2,5 trillion will be sourced externally.  No wonder, therefore, that the Kiswahili language Newspaper, Habari Leo, described the proposed new budget as “Bajeti ya kujitegemea”.    

And this now reminds me of the “Self-Reliance” provisions of the 1967 Arusha Declaration; which state as follows: “TANU is fighting a serious war with a view to transforming our nation from a position of economic weakness, to one of strength. Because of such weakness, we have been despised, and we have been neglected. We now need a revolution which will lift us from this position of weakness to a more respectable position of strength, that will shield us in future from being so despised and so neglected”.       

This diminishing dependence on foreign sources for financing our country’s development clearly demonstrates the current Government’s determination to “fight the war for transforming our nation from a position of economic weakness to one of strength”, in compliance with the clarion call made by the Arusha Declaration quoted above. Furthermore, with regard to this matter of excessive reliance on external sources for our country’s development, the Arusha Declaration provides as follows:

“There is no single country in the world which will give us sufficient loans and grants to meet all our requirements. But even if there were such countries, it would be extremely unwise for us to receive such donor money, without giving serious thought, or consideration, on its negative impact on the country’s freedom and security”. Hence, one of the relevant lessons to be learnt from the Fifth Phase Governments’ Budgets, is that they have, commendably, reactivated the implementation of “guidelines for Self-Reliance” which are stipulated in the Arusha Declaration. 

As noted above, the second outstanding feature of the Fifth Phase budgets, is the large size of its Budgets. What is clearly implied here, is that the country has got enough internal resources to support a much higher level of funding for both the recurrent, and the development expenditures, provided that these resources are properly exploited and utilized. This also appears to be a positive step in the direction of implementing article 9 (c) of the Constitution of the United Republic, 1977; which provides as follows: “Shughuli zote za Serikali zitatekelezwa kwa njia ambazo zitahakikisha kwamba utajiri wa Taifa unahifadhiwa, unaendelezwa, na unatumiwa kwa manufaa ya wananchi wote kwa jumla”.                               

The performance of the Fifth Phase Government in this regard, helps to demonstrate its abundant political will, plus its commitment, to establish a direct link between policy declarations such as this one, and their practical implementation.

Parliament at work: the normal budget debat

Rule 106 (1) of the House Rules governing Parliamentary debates on the Government budgets, provides as follows: “mjadala kuhusu bajeti ya Serikali utaendelea kwa muda usiozidi siku saba”.

During this general debate, which normally starts on the Monday immediately following the Minister’s presentation of the budget proposals on the previous Thursday. (The intervening days being used by MPs to read and digest the contents of the proposals), in preparation for the debate thereon).                                                         

On conclusion of the said debate, the House is required to vote by way of roll call, namely that each individual MP’s name is called out, and he is required to respond by voting either in favour, or against, the motion for the adoption of the budget. The roll call method of voting is important and necessary, because of the provisions of article 90 (2) of the Constitution of the United Republic, which prescribes the special circumstances under which the President may dissolve Parliament, which is followed by new general elections of Members of Parliament, and of the President himself.

The said provision reads as follows: “The President shall have no power to dissolve Parliament at any time, save only if the National Assembly refuses to approve the Government’s proposed annual budget”.                                                         

It may be helpful to explain, that the framers of our Constitution intended this provision to mean that the National Assembly’s refusal to approve the Government’s proposed budget, is equivalent to an expression of “no confidence” in the Government of the day. Thus, should that happen, the President is compelled by the Constitution to dissolve Parliament, so as to give the electorate the opportunity for electing a new Government if they so wish (which might probably be formed by the Opposition parties).  This, in fact, is the sole reason for the strict application of what is known as the “party whip” by the ruling party to its MPs.  This is because their own party caucus Rules strictly require them to support their Government on this particular issue, since it is, literally, a matter of “survival, or death”! That is to say, either the party will survive in office if the budget is adopted or might be kicked out if they lose the ensuing election. That is also, most probably, the reason  why the opposition parties in our Parliament have consistently voted “NO” to every Government budget, of every financial year, right from the establishment of the first multi-party parliament of 1995; despite the obvious fact that their own salaries and allowances as MPs are paid from the same budget, which they seemingly take great delight in rejecting!  Presumably, they must respond positively to their own ‘party whip’ to that effect, or else!  

It is only in connection with this annual event of MPs voting to adopt the annual Government budget, that the party discipline inside Parliament becomes most visible to the general public. Hence, hopefully, this little clarification will help them to better understand the reason why this happens so regularly and repeatedly.

Procedure in the Committee of the Whole House

After the House has adopted the budget, there are two Budget related BILLS, namely the Finance Bill. and the Appropriation Bill; which must also be adopted in order to complete the circle of consideration of the entire budget business. The Finance Bill is required in order to give legal effect to the decisions which the house has made in adopting the budget proposals, specifically the revenue proposals relating to the imposition of any new taxes, or alterations to any existing taxes. The Finance Bill must be taken through all the normal stages of First Reading; Second Reading; Committee stage; and Third Reading, like any other Bill.                                                   
The other Bill which must also be adopted, is the annual Appropriation Bill. However, unlike the Finance Bill and all other Bills, there is NO committee stage for the Appropriation Bill. Instead, the Bill is taken rapidly through the three separate Readings. When these two budget related Bills have been adopted by the House, they will be submitted to the President for his Assent, like any other Bill which is passed by the National Assembly.  And when the Presidential Assent to them has been obtained, that is when the annual Government budget for the relevant financial year is regarded as being ready for implementation. It is, a seemingly, a very long process, but is absolutely necessary for the purposes of the country’s ‘good governance’ needs and requirements, which demand the full involvement and participation of the people’s representatives in certain specified matters of the country’s governance.

piomsekwa@gmail.com  /  0754767576.

Source: Daily News and Cde Msekwa Himself.