Finance Ministry cuts Police budget by 15%

The Uganda police budget has been cut to shs. 823.728bn in next financial year 2023/24 from 975.414bn a figure amounting to 152 billion shillings in a revised budget for 2022/23. Undersecretary to Police told the committee on defense that this will affect service delivery.

Uganda police force says it has a deficit of officers amounting to 40,000 needed for its operations.This will be affected if the budget is not fully funded highlighting need for more.

Police was infact asking the budget committee to increase its budget to atleast 1 trillion starting the next financial year but this hit a dead end.

Finance Ministry says Uganda a huge debt and thus there will alot of budget cuts with most of the funds channeled to pay debts as well as financing high priority sectors.

The Bank of Uganda reported that on average 37% of revenue collected goes to debt and interest repayment. It also reported that as a result of failure to raise enough money to repay our external debt,we have now encroached on our national reserves reducing it from $4.3 Bn to $3.6 Bn.

Debt and interest payment has added an extra Shs 2.3 trillion in the proposed budget. The entire budget has increased by Shs 1.8 trillion.