Parliament approves NDP III without debate

By Our Reporter

30^th Jan 2020

Parliament has approved the third National Development Plan-NDP without debate in a special session held since morning in the interest of time to aid the budget process.

The NDP III was tabled before Parliament on 22nd January 2020 by the Minister of State for Planning David Bahati and referred to the Budget Committee for review that is supposed to inform the processing and approval of the budgets for the next five years starting with 2020/2021 financial.

The Public Finance Management Act, 2015 provides that the annual National Budget Framework Paper-NBFP must align with the approved National Development Plan.

The Deputy Speaker of parliament Jacob Oulanyah appealed to legislators to skip debate on the NDP III, approve it and concentrate on debating the election-year budget that.

Today’s sitting had to facilitate the deadlines as follows;

February 1: Deadline for Parliament to pass budget framework paper.

March 15: Deadline for submission of Ministerial Policy Statements.

April 1: Deadline for annual budget to be presented to Parliament.

May 15: Budget committee presents budget report to parliament.

May 31: Deadline for Parliament to pass the budget.

The goal of the NDP III is “Increased household incomes and improved quality of life”. Government sets to achieve the goal under the overall theme of “Sustainable Industrialization for inclusive growth, employment and sustainable wealth creation”, all in line with the Uganda Vision 2040.

the Budget Committee Vice Chairperson Patrick Isiagi informed the house that they were keen on maintaining the key development strategies of the NPD III., like; agro-industrialization, fast-tracking oil, gas and mineral based industrialization, import replacement/ promotion of local manufacturing, export promotion, harnessing the tourism potential, increase local content participation and others.