MP tells National Economy Committee to scrutinize Shs1.7 trillion request loan before approval

By Francis Lubega

2^nd Nov 2022

The Shadow Minister of Finance Muhammad Muwanga Kivumbi has cautioned the Parliamentary National Economy committee to avoid approving the 1.7 trillion shillings loan request by the government before establishing its authenticity.

This comes after the government’s disclosure of its intention to borrow 1.73 trillion Shillings to finance the country’s development and infrastructure budget for the current financial year.

Kivumbi who is also the Butambala County Member of Parliament while appearing before the committee on Wednesday, said that the repayment terms of the loan are too expensive for the country to manage.

According to him, this will attract a 3 trillion shillings repayment in the 10 years period at 15% interest rate as agreed by the government which is unfair to Ugandans.

Kivumbi further notified the committee that the Standard Chartered Bank which had offered to lend Uganda was a blocker of other banks with a projection of receiving a 46 million US dollar commission.

The MP further asked the committee to ring-fence the loan on the particular items meant to benefit from the request to avoid situations of diverting the money to other unplanned activities.

Kivumbi also tasked the committee which was chaired by its Vice Chairperson Robert Migadde to ask the Ministry of Finance to table the list of developmental and infrastructure projects that will benefit from the loan request.