By Spy Uganda
HE Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has announced that he will virtually address parliament during today’s budget reading.
Although he earlier delegated Vice President Jessica Alupo to inspect the parade and take the salute for the match past, Museveni says will be ready to deliver his speech at the end of the budget speech.
“Since I am not traveling to Kyiv and Russia, I will be able to address Parliament tomorrow, virtually, on the budget Day. Otherwise, I had delegated the whole effort to VP Alupo,” Museveni’s tweet reads in part.
The 2023/2024 national budget will be the fourth budget for the implementation of the five-year 2020-2025 third National Development Plan (NDPIII) which among other targets intends to reduce Uganda’s poverty rate to 15% and to increase the country’s per capita income (average earning of every Ugandan annually) to $1300 (Sh4.8m).
The latest statistics put Uganda’s per capita income at $1052 and the poverty rate at 20.3%.
World Bank last week released a report indicating Uganda has not made significant progress in poverty reduction in the last 10 years.
In its January 2023 report on the Budget Framework Paper (draft national budget) for the next financial year of 2023/2024, Parliament implored the Executive to ensure more resources are allocated to the productive sectors of Agriculture, ICT, tourism, and industry to improve the performance of NDPIII.
Last month, the National Planning Authority launched the midterm review report, which indicates that the performance of NDPIII is only at 17%.
According to the midterm review report, the poor performance of NDPIII is attributed to weak planning and inadequate budgeting for core projects and productive sectors.
