We must revoke the Donation Budget for Public Offices

 

By Michael Aboneka

As Uganda grapples with budget deficits to ensure effective, adequate service delivery, we are faced with an enigma of donation budgets which is not only morally wrong but is a type of officio corruption as it is a fundamental contradiction to the ethos of transparent and accountable governance. The offices of the President, Speaker and Deputy Speaker are among those that receive the donations Budget. If this is a government policy, why doesn’t the Judiciary have one? It goes without saying that the Executive and the Legislature are more political branches who probably will need this additional cash to advance their political interests in the name of donation. It is also a fallacy, to tell tax payers, that you are donating to them money which money came from them through the taxes they paid.

This is problematic because, firstly, allowing public offices to have huge donations budget institutionalizes a culture of patronage, where influence could be bought under the guise of generosity. Public institutions are meant to serve the people, not the interests of individuals or entities with deep pockets. With these donation budgets, it is difficult to draw lines between public service and private interests and in a country grappling with high corruption, where we lose more than $2.7 Billion per year. The donations must be mainstreamed into the bigger budget ecosystems and if the politicians and office bearers feel compelled to donate, they should do so with their own money and not tax payers’. Secondly, the country has long struggled with excessive government spending often on non-essential activities such as cars, numerous public events, unnecessary travels among others.  The biggest issue is that of accountability. There are no clear guidelines for the donations handed out by those in public offices since they are using tax payers’ money to do so. Do we know who the beneficiaries of these donations are? Doesn’t  this money end up in their own charities and businesses in the name of donations? What is the impact of these donations? It is difficult to account for such-and yes, we need accountability for the donations since they are public resources.

We need to stop donations budget immediately and focus this money to direct service delivery in order to eliminate wastage and improve fiscal discipline. The Constitutional framework mandates that the use of public resources must align with national priorities and be free from undue influence, which donations fall short of this.  In other democracies, donation mechanisms are separated from government operations to avoid conflicts of interest. Uganda should emulate such practices to safeguard public trust.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Can we have better services beyond the Summits?

By Michael Aboneka Kampala has been a hive of activities since the last quarter of 2023 because it dawned on us that we were to host three big summits/conferences-the Conference of Speakers and Presiding Officers of the Common Wealth, Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit and the G77 3RD South Summit all to take place in January. We have never leant from doing last minute planning and implementation-up to January 14 th , we were painting roads, placing rubbish bins and doing last minute stuff including “planting” grown trees among others. Then come to communication about the traffic updates and the confusion it has caused-the “rescuing” of street children-which literally was like kidnapping them to Kampiligisa and the same had been done previously when we had “serious” visitors –after the visitors were gone, the street children were back happily smiling and begging from those who had made the decision. In record time, lights have been fixed at the Kampala Entebbe Expressway-after we have...
Read more

The Right to dissent must be respected and protected.

By Michael Aboneka Jr The right to dissent is by and large an extension of the freedom of   conscience, expression, movement, religion, assembly and association   enshrined under Article 29 of the Constitution of Uganda, 1995.   Uganda too signed the African Charter on democracy, elections and good governance (ACDEG) in December 2008, which espouses the right to   dissent and holding opinions important for any democracy. The charter   further under Chapter 4 enjoins states to protect such freedoms and   under article 27(8), States are enjoined to protect and promote the   freedom of expression, opinion and the press and media.  Now that   Uganda has committed to promote and protect these freedoms, why is the   right to dissent in this country becoming increasingly an offence? In the recent past, we have had episodes where those who hold a divergent view from the majority have been demonized, threatened, and called all sorts of names just...
Read more

THOSE WITH VITZ, DON’T GET ANNOYED, FIGHT CORRUPTION!

By Michael Aboneka Social media was awash with the comments of the Inspector General of Government on issues of corruption. In her statement, attention was drawn to the fact that corruption does not affect the   haves -but rather the have-nots and the less privileged who are always the victim of corruption. In whatever way you want to take the words of the IGG, there is truth in it in all ways. The rich will continue to be rich at the expense of the poor. What more examples do we need to this when we have fresh accounts of ministers who were arrested, charged, remanded and are still battling cases over the “stolen Iron sheets”---for they were taking from the poor/vulnerable? Using the example of how the poor and less privileged will spend all their money on repairing their small cars; Toyota wish and vitz time and again because of the potholes, while those in government and highly placed offices will never feel the potholes later on the pinch of repair costs; it is a glaring fact l...
Read more