The Deputy Secretary to the Treasury Ocailap urges Eastern Local Leaders to focus on enhancing local revenue mobilization & PDM
Drake Nyamugabwa
During the Local Government Regional Budget Consultative Workshops FY 2024/25 held in Mbale, the Deputy Secretary to the Treasury, Mr. Patrick Ocailap representing the Minister of Finance Planning and Economic Development Hon Matia Kasaija, urged local leaders from the Eastern regions to specifically focus on enhancing revenue local sources.
Mr. Patrick in his keynote speech, also told the local leaders at the workshop held at Mbale Resort Hotel on Monday 2nd October 2023 that there is a need to intensively implement the Parish Development Model (PDM)
While highlighting key priorities for the FY2024/25 budget he said,
“The priorities include Agricultural production & value addition, climate change & management of food security, implementation of PDM, accelerated development of the mineral sector, consolidating infrastructure development, security & governance, human capital development, digitalization & automation of economy & Private Sector Development”
Fred Ejautene, the Executive Director of Citizen Initiative for Democracy and Development Uganda (CIDD-UG) presented the Civil Society Statement on Improving Service Delivery.
In the statement, the Civil Society Organizations in their Statement recommended that Govt should prioritize the rehabilitation of education & health infrastructure and routine maintenance of community access roads & key trunk roads. They also want Govt to support local revenue mobilization & management.
The Local Government leaders raised some challenges that they would like to be addressed to improve service delivery including: Fixing wage shortfalls, recruitments to fill critical vacant positions in LGs, expediting the release of funds & specifically providing operational funds for PDM as well as operationalization of new administrative units among others issues.
The Ministry of Finance, Planning, and Economic Development is holding Local Government Regional Budget Consultative Workshops in line with Section 13(2) of the Public Finance Management Act,2015 (as amended) aimed at communicating the Government's budget strategy and priorities for FY 2024/25 and discussing the investment priorities to facilitate the development growth strategies as well as budget implementation challenges affecting service delivery across Local Governments.
