By Olivia Nabaggala
27th April 2023
Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) under their umbrella body the Civil Society Budget Advocacy Group (CSBAG) have expressed their worry over the increasing domestic arrears.
Domestic arrears are overdue payments on financial obligations from primary spending.
The 2022 Auditor General’s report showed that domestic arrears increased from Shs4.65 trillion in 2021 to Shs 7.55 trillion in 2022.
Speaking to the press at the CSBAG offices in Ntinda on Thursday, the Groups’ Policy and Program Advisor Jeff Wadulo noted that this is a big concern due to the fact that in this ending Financial Year 2022/23 only shs200bn was budgeted to clear arrears which is not enough to reduce the burden of the domestic arrear stock as reported by the Office of the Auditor General.
He now asks the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development to exercise its powers through sections 79 and 80 of the Public Finance Management Authority 2015 to penalize and sanction accounting officers who subsequently accumulate arrears in order to address the continued accumulation of arrears.
He also called upon parliament to implore the Ministry of Public Service to fast track the rationalization of ministries, departments and agencies to eliminate the high government expenditure on salaries, wages among others.
In 2018, the Government revealed plans of merging public agencies, commissions and authorities doing similar work as one of the measures to reduce expenditure but this has not yet been implemented.
In July 2022, Government released Shs661.9b to clear all domestic arrears budgeted for the 2022/23 financial year.
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