Ugandan government has projected that the 2021 general elections will cost 700 Billion Shillings.
This is an increase from the Shillings 419.9 billion budget for the 2016 general elections.
The State Minister for Finance in charge of Planning, David Bahati, told Parliament’s Local Government and Public Service committee that half of the Shillings 700 billion is to be provided to the Electoral Commission in the next financial year 2019/2020 while the balance will be cleared the following year.
He further said that his ministry is discussing with the EC regarding the requirements for financing the 2021 General Elections.
Asked about the increasing cost of elections, the Ndorwa West Member of Parliament said that the cost of democracy is not cheap and that its alternative is very expensive.
Meanwhile, according to the First Budget Call Circular for the coming financial year budget, the preliminary resource envelope for the financial year 2019/2020, excluding arrears and domestic debt repayments is 33.08 trillion shillings. Out of this, the government funding is 24.76 trillion shillings while external funding is 8.322 trillion shillings.
The National budget according to these figures is up by 779.4 billion shillings from the current fiscal year budget.
According to Bahati, 359.4 billion shillings of the additional funds is to cater for interest payments while 100 billion shillings is for recapitalization of Bank of Uganda.
He explains that the balance of 320 billion shillings is to be allocated to key priorities for next financial year in line with the Budget Strategy for financial year 2019/2020.
– URN
