Lawmakers on the Committee on Finance yesterday threw out officials from the Ministry of Finance after they failed to avail detailed requisite documents on the latest update on budget cuts and the government’s latest plan on tax waivers alongside other supporting details.
The team from the Ministry of Finance led by the State Minister for General Duties, Mr Henry Musasizi, and the deputy Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, Mr Patrick Ocailap, were denied audience by lawmakers since a section of the documents they availed had faint ink, the font size was tiny, and they were insufficient to inform the scheduled deliberations at Parliament.
The Butambala County MP, Mr Muwanga Kivumbi, said: “This is the fourth time that ministers appear here and we repeat the same thing and they are short-circuiting us. We have reached an extent where either the executive or the ministers who come here think this committee does not know what they want or are questioning our authority.”
Parliament had asked the Ministry of Finance to avail the annual cashflow plan resulting from the approval of the budget for Financial Year 2022/2023, the quarter one releases for the current financial year and the planned external debt payments. The Finance ministry had also been tasked to avail a report on tax waivers and exemptions in Uganda by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Efforts by Mr Musasizi and Mr Ocailap to persuade the MPs on the committee to proceed by following PowerPoint presentations contained on a flash disk were futile.
The MPs reasoned that they require adequate time to appreciate the details of the Ministry of Finance’s submissions and, therefore, asked the Permanent Secretary/ Secretary to Treasury, Mr Ramathan Ggoobi, to adequately respond to any queries that would be raised.
Resolution
The chairperson of the committee, Mr Keefa Kiwanuka, asked that the Ministry of Finance officials to return tomorrow with the requisite detailed documents.
“I am also facing an awkward situation because those documents that have been laid, there is no way we can share them instantly. So it is fairly difficult for us to process,” Mr Kiwanuka said.
Mr Kiwanuka, however, ordered the Finance ministry officials to ensure that the documents are availed to Parliament today to allow committee members to scrutinise the documents ahead of the deliberations tomorrow.