onders will never end. At
least not in the Parliament of the Republic of Uganda—as far as Agnes Nantutu a
reporter for National Television (NTV) is concerned.
The
Drama
The way Honorable Cecilia
Ogwal brought it up, you would see a woman with her facts. Especially knowing
that she had just renewed her marriage vows that very week, only the kind of
the popular Thomas would doubt her. Some of us then admired working in State
House. Who wouldn’t like the 96 million shillings as salary leaving alone being
in ‘near-constant touch’ with the biggest man of the land?
While still in a bit of shock,
my mind quickly rushed to 2014/15 Budget speech. Hon. Maria Kiwanuka, the
Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, in her ‘non-Ugandan
English’ had declared:
“50. Madam Speaker
…next financial year, total resource inflows are projected to amount to Shs 15,054 billion…”
“97. Madam
Speaker, I have allocated Shs 1,197.8bn to enable implementation of the
Government priority programmes in the health sector”.
If my mathematics hasn’t
betrayed me—like it did in my Primary Leaving Examination (PLE), this is 7.95%
of the total budget. This time I won’t write about the 15% Abuja Declaration,
where the Government of Uganda, among others, committed that 15% of their
budgets would be allocated to the health sector.
The
context
hat budget speech will be the last
one during implementation of the first phase of the National Development Plan
2010-15. It is also approaching the deadline of the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs), must I add that whose targets related to the health sector,
Uganda is not near to achieving them? No I won’t. Let us first wait for what
Honorable Sam Kahamba Kutesa, the President for the 69th session of
the United Nations Assembly has to deliver on the post 2015 development agenda.
Needless to remember is the budget speech made in
the year is closest to the general elections, that will determine who goes to
the same state house that Hon. Cecilia Ogwal was trying to bring under the
torch. Of course the “Kyankwazi Declaration’ is clear about who should be in
state house by 2016.
In
the beginning
here was a word. The word was
with the health workers. The word was a complaint. This time not complaining of
little pay, not the poor working environment, not the unavailability of basic
equipment or medicines, or even running water to use in the labor room. By the
way, these days some health worker slash the compound and mop the floor. Porter
and cleaner is no longer a position in the staffing structure at some level. Ask the
Nursing Officer in-charge of Mukabara Health Center III in Hoima district, or
even the mid-wife at Acimi Health Center II in Oyam district, how many times
they slashed the health center compounds and mopped the floor! All that was not the complaint. But none payment
of even the little salary. I am not going to talk about rights and privileges
of employees. That was over 4 months back.
Before
that
he government of Uganda is
doing a lot to improve the health of her citizens so that they become very
productive as an investment for growth and social economic transformation (See
VISION 2040). Health Services are free in Uganda. That much I am sure.
So is primary and secondary education. Unless you don’t support government
programmes. Me I do. That is why I didn’t study at St. Lawrance
Primary Schools neither do I know the exact location of International Hospital
Kampala.
In absolute terms, yes Shs 1,197.8bn for the health sector for
2014/15 is quite a lot. I hope Hellen Kagina, the Uganda Revenue Authority Boss
will be able to raise all the Shs
12,321 billion representing 81.8% of the total budget. If she doesn’t,
the actual pie for the sector will be less. Last financial year she couldn’t
collect up to Shs.475 billion of the projected income.
ome Ugandans
and investors like dodging taxes.
So far the private schools have petitioned the Madam Speaker of Parliament.
Before that were the hotel owners. They don’t want to pay taxes in the name of
Public Private Partnership (PPP). Guess who is next? Where on earth do you want
government to get money to provide peace, social services, roads and railways
if everyone doesn’t want to pay taxes? Don’t relate this to the
anti-homosexuality law because what we are talking about here is health
financing not politics.
The naked truth
hank
God that what NTV thought was a big story were typo errors in the state house
salary figures. The Opposition Chief Whip. Cecelia Ogwal might have to wait a
little longer to crack the whip, assuming the inconsistences in the new payroll
list is neglected. If it had been the truth, then most of us would have
remembered that:
In a country where
health services are free, households remain the major source of funds for their
health constituting over 50% of the health expenditure. At least 9% of household income is
spent on health. Sometimes it’s as high as 65%. You and I know how much we
spent on health. I am not talking about you who present insurance cards instead
of touching your pockets when it’s time to pay.
28%
of Ugandans get poorer due to medical bills. The bills are much beyond what they
can earn. They sell all they have to meet such bills. It’s called catastrophic
expenditure on health. Some of the diseases to which the expenditure are made
are preventable by simple and cheap interventions.
The
government claim that even if Government expenditure on health
reaches 15%, the resources will not be adequate to
fully implement the Health Service Delivery is not necessarily true. If well
used, it would make a great difference
Someone somewhere in the position of
authority has failed to decide to make the National Health Insurance scheme move
to the next level. Risk pooling is the only way the poor Ugandans can be
protected from the everyday bills and improve universal coverage for health
care
Tax holidays and waiving off some taxes is
not the best thing in a situation where we would like to fund over 80% of our
budget. Someone should join me so that we also take our petition to Mama
Kadaga not to allow those ‘not-well-thought’ petitions.
The state can still protect us, the end user consumers, from the threats
that we the local voters are the ones to feel pinch of the new tax proposals by
Hon. Kiwanuka. Blindly speaking, the profits they get can enable them pay
taxes, meet other operation costs and still get home with lots and lots of
profit.
Surely how much do those schools
spend on a nursery kid to justify school fess of over shs 800,000 per term and
still claim they can’t pay tax? Let them pay tax and demand government to in
return give them constant electricity, even if it’s Yaka; good roads and etc. I
hope our accountant won’t read this. He may over-deduct my PAYE in the name of
patriotism.
Lastly
All this would be remembered if the salaries
at state house were true. But now that they weren’t, don’t mind me. If you do,
then have your say.
