The Government of Uganda has introduced new measures to enforce budget accountability in the record Shs84.3 trillion national budget for FY 2026/27.
While presenting the budget on June 11, 2026, the Minister of Finance, Henry Musasizi, announced that, effective July 2026, all accounting officers must sign a budget discipline and accountability charter as part of their performance contracts.
The minister explained that the charter imposes sanctions for breaches of accountability rules in planning, budgeting, and the use of public resources.
He said the charter will strengthen public financial management, improve budget execution, reduce wasteful spending, and enhance allocative efficiency. This is exactly what we have been calling for. This notable convergence between the government’s new actions and our recommendations dating over a decade is, if implemented, a major step toward stronger fiscal discipline.
Both government and civil society have emphasised the need to use public resources more efficiently amid rising debt pressure and ambitions to transform Uganda into a $500 billion economy.
This renewed focus on fiscal prudence reflects years of advocacy by members in this space. As an organisation we have consistently called for an end to ‘budget games,’ stronger sanctions against underperforming officers, reduced reliance on borrowing, and increased emphasis on value for money and pro-poor spending.
Through position papers and public engagements, Civil Society Budget Advocacy Group (CSBAG) and its members have highlighted how budget shuffling, misallocation, and frequent supplementary budgets facilitate corruption, cause leakages, and erode public trust.
Armed with data from several studies, our resolve never wavered. We consistently called for decisive government action to end these practices.
For example, while addressing the 9th High-Level Economic Growth Forum in July 2025, we criticised persistent budget inefficiencies, including inflated costs, ghost items, and the misuse of supplementary budgets. I believe we cannot continue playing budget games.
The government must prioritise clearing domestic arrears and enhance transparency to ensure that every shilling delivers value for citizens.
In addition, in 2025, when responding to the decision to return the FY 2025/26 budget, we warned that Parliament’s reallocation of funds for personal or political interests is fundamentally wrong and amounts to ‘budgeting for corruption and self-preservation.’ This is because I strongly believe that budgets must serve citizens, not enable inefficiency, fund shifting, or personal enrichment.
However, questions remain about whether the government will fully implement these broader reforms. As execution of the FY 2026/27 budget begins in July 2026, stakeholders will closely monitor whether the new charter, alongside stronger action on debt and project planning, improves execution rates, reduces waste, and delivers better outcomes for citizens.
The government maintains that, together with priorities in commercialisation, industrialisation, and other growth enablers, these reforms will accelerate Uganda’s socio-economic transformation.
While I welcome the new charter, CSBAG urges the government to address debt management more decisively, as debt servicing consumes nearly 39 percent of the national budget and hinders essential service delivery. We also call for tighter control of non-productive spending to reallocate resources to priority sectors, emphasising that budget figures must translate into tangible improvements for Ugandans through better implementation and measurable impact.
Stakeholders, including Parliament, civil society, and the private sector, are expected to intensify oversight to ensure that these commitments translate into results.