The government of Uganda should priotize essential and non essential sectors in order to fight poverty in Uganda.

On 26^thAugust 2017 Johnstone Baguma the ED of ToroDev, Ms Linda Irene Mugisa a citizen of Fort Portal and Mr. Baguma Patrick the FDC vice chairperson in Fort Portal municipality were hosted live on HITS FM to debate on “The increasing government authorities and agencies taking in consideration their relevancy to the country’s development” on what was raised by the president of the republic of Uganda.

The panelists mentioned that the increased number of agencies like UMA, NIRA, URA, WLF, NITA etc will automatically call for recruitment of more workers and increased financial expenditure among other things. The country is currently facing a huge expenditure which calls for leaders to be alert on essential and non essential sectors to fight poverty and work to achieve the middle income country status goal.

 

They further commented that the scrubbing off of these agencies will boost the economy by saving the funds that would be paying the workers,office rent and other expenditures, the saving can be invested in key development sectors other than facilitating these agencies which spend funds on non development ventures like wages and salaries.

 “I do support the president’s idea of scrubbing off some Agencies which seem to do the same work to cut down the unnecessary expenses for example the increased agencies are non developmental and some need to be closed to create a room for others to share multi-tasks and responsibilities”. Said Ms Linda Irene.

She further commented that the three arms of government need to track the relevancy of additional agencies & authorities because we have seen many in existence but still surrounded by under performance of key development sectors like health,education and economic development.The country should facilitate essential sectors and work to merge the existing ones since most of them share the same responsibilities. 

During the two hours live discussion over 35 people called in and sent SMS to engage in the discussion and these are some of their comments.

  

“Agencies, Authorities and other Administrative units the government creates are less important to people who are on ground and none are beneficial to the poor rather than consuming tax payer’s money.” Said Tumusime from Mugusu town council Kabarole district,

” Agencies and authorities should be scrubbed off so that the facilitation can cater for sectors which are demanding”. Said Ezra a caller from Kabarole district.

“Agencies have created a room in the misuse of tax payers money and yet some of them share the same tasks,the president coming up with such a decision is good and it will lead to development”. Said Ruhungu Shaban a caller from south division Kabarole district.

We thank SIDA, NED, SPIDER, ICT4DEM, and CIPESA for financial and technical.