As the clock ticked to the end of the financial year, the Budget Committee of Parliament was still caught up scrutinizing supplementary budgets tabled by the Presidency. Presidency Minister, Esther Mbayo and State House Controller, Lucy Nakyobe faced numerous questions on items captured in the supplementary requests as some of the bills were unreasonably unrealistic. The requirements in the supplementary budget included telecom charges, water, electricity, insurance, and travel both within and out of the country.

Cecilia Ogwal the Woman MP for Dokolo said that “The plea of the president is my concern, so it means now you are saying Your Excellence Sir, you can create any commission of inquiry. We would continue to lump money in State House and you remember that we had to close our eyes, nose, and ears to make sure that State House was given a huge sum of money to make sure you will never ever come back for supplementary.”

However, Esther Mbayo the Minister for Presidency said that the parliamentarians should bear with him that on this issue, there was an issue of concern to all Ugandans because it also impacted on Mulago Hospital or Ministry of Health, not just the Ministry of Education. But while the figures were unacceptably high, what caught the attention of members of Parliament was the expenditure on water which stood at one million per day.

“Isn’t it understandable that they would need this money in the supplementary request?” Muwanga Kivumbi, MP for Butambala noted and went on to state that “Now let’s start with water, for instance, they had 700 Billion in the main budget, now they want an additional 300 in the Supplementary that pushes the figure to 900 Billion. That means a year, every single day State House consumes water of 3 Million Shillings. Now when you go to the cost unit of water by National Water, then that is a huge amount of water.”

The Minister of Presidency responded by saying that “So with the water that is really raising a lot of concern as the consumption of water in State House, we cater for the president and the immediate family, the Vice President and the immediate family, all the State lodges in the country and all the facilities that call for State functions. So that is why some of the supplementaries are coming up.”

Travels within and out, had the highest expenditure, with travel inland costing 9.550 Billion Shillings and travel abroad standing at 3.5 Billion Shillings, Classified expenditure ranked second with a budget of 5.028 Billion, while the Makerere Visitation Committee needed 2.43 Billion to complete its work. The list also had insurance that stood at 1.475 Billion Shillings to cover the helicopters recently purchased for the president.