The Speaker of Parliament, Anita Among, has reiterated Parliament’s commitment to reduce public borrowing.
Among said this on Tuesday, 09 January 2024 while receiving the Annual Report of the Auditor General on the Public Accounts for the Financial Year ended 30th June 2023 from the Auditor General, John Muwanga.
Among emphasised the importance of conducting regular value-for-money audits to foster public accountability and reduce unnecessary borrowing.
“As Parliament, we will do our part in ensuring we scrutinise the reports of the Auditor General. We have put a lot of money into the Parish Development Model (PDM), institutions in the name of buying shares, so we need to know how much money we have and how it is performing,” Among said, adding that such audits will help the country spend within their means.
“This will help in public debt; it will help us ensure we reduce the thirst of borrowing and depend on what we have,” she said.
According to the Auditor General’s report for FY 2022-2023, the total public debt as of June 30, 2023 stood at Shs96.16 trillion, comprising domestic debt stock of Shs43.69 trillion and external debt stock of Shs52.472 trillion.
“It was noted that there has been a consistent increase in the total debt as evidenced by an increase of 107 per cent in the five years from 2018/2019 of Shs46 trillion to Shs96.168 trillion as of 30th June 2023……this implies that the public debt is growing at a higher rate than GDP,” Edward Akol, the Assistant Auditor General in charge of Audits said.
The increase in public debt has been attributed to increased government expenditure compared to the domestic revenue to finance the fiscal deficit.
The existence of ghost employees in public service and ghost PDM enterprises were among the key highlights of the Auditor General’s report. The aftermath of the 2023 validation exercise of government employees revealed that the government lost Shs6.72 billion paid to 1,818 ghost employees.
On the other hand, in 68 Local Governments, 604 beneficiaries in 242 PDM SACCOs had implemented ineligible projects while, in 20 Local Governments, 53 beneficiaries in 44 PDM SACCOs had non-existent
I think the government needs to devise all means to manage the debt burden. Spending should be on sectors that directly improve welfare of citizens and not lavish spending on buying expensive cars for retired speakers of Parliament and other government officials.