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By Yasiin Mugerwa,
Citizen Correspondent, Kampala
The government may fail to finance the 2009/10 budget after it emerged
that planned resource envelope is short of close to Shs2 trillion, Daily
Monitor can reveal.
Members of Parliament who talked to The Citizen on Monday, are worried
that this could cripple service delivery in the country, especially at
the time when donors have just cut their contribution from Ush668.5
billion to Ush598.1 billion.
Legislators across the political spectrum argued the financial crisis
that has frustrated many economic worldwide is the cause of the deficit.
"We have a shortfall of Ush1.7 trillion in the budget and the donors
have cut budget support to a tune of Ush70.4 billion. The project
support is also set to decline by more than Ush34 billion," the shadow
Finance minister, Mr Albert Oduman (FDC, Bukedea) said.
"This deficit is bad news and we cannot hide from the financial crisis
that has hit developed economies and this is the reason why we have this
huge deficit in our 2009/10 budget."
The deficit concerns came as the government announced the new date for
the budget reading changing from June 15 to June 11.
The changes were communicated by the Acting Clerk to Parliament, Mr
Chris Kaija at a meeting with a delegation of MPs on Finance, Economic
and Commercial Committee of Somaliland.
The Citizen Daily - May 12, 2009
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