• MUBS Economic Forum Discusses the National Budget

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July 11, 2013 by 

The MUBS Economic Forum met on Thursday July 4, 2013 to discuss the budget. The key presentation was made by Ramadhan Ggoobi, a lecturer and an economic critic who is always in the newspapers critiquing different government economic policies. The respondents included MUBS Principal Prof. Waswa Balunywa and one of the upcoming MUBS economists Dickson Turyareeba. Ramadhan in his presentation wondered whether government had addressed the needs of the poor and he pointed out that there appeared something unusual in the government budget. Money was allocated every year to a specific sector. By the end of the year, it had not been spent and was diverted to other sectors through supplementary budgets. He noted that in this specific year a trillion shillings was allocated to electricity and less than 10% was used. He reported that the supplementary budget of this year was over 25% of the national budget had come in as supplementary budget. According to him, this was suspicious. National priorities are tabled but not implemented. Prof. Balunywa brought controversial to the forum by showing a video clip of jiggers in Iganga district. He wondered whether any money had been put to address this embarrassing challenge that was closely related to poverty. He said people should not be ashamed to speak about jiggers because this was a reality. Mr. Turyareeba discussed the presentations and agreed that government was not spending its resources to address poverty issues. The excited audience criticized government allocation of resources urging government to spend more money on agriculture education to be able to address poverty in the country.

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