President Yoweri Museveni has said the country intends to rise at least 18 per cent of it’s Gross Domestic Product(GDP) in the next five years to cut it’s over reliance of debt financing.
The country’s domestic revenue in financial year 2022/23, is estimated at UShs. 25.55 trillion, which is about 13.7 percent GDP.
Next financial year 2023/24, the government expects to collect UShs. 29.67 trillion as domestic revenue.
Museveni noted that this strategy to raise revenue, the Government is planning to raise at least 18 percent of GDP in the next five years.
“When we achieve this target, we shall be able to reduce our reliance on borrowing to finance a larger share of our budget. We must avoid this problem of not being able to pay our debt by increasing what we collect from taxes and other sources of domestic revenue such as loyalties from our mineral development. Some countries are paying more than 50% of their collections in taxes to service debts. We should avoid falling into this debt trap.” He explained.
The Preaident also aaddressed his government’s excessive expenditure on non priorities. He said that “in addition to collecting more revenue domestically, we should also not spend what we do not have.
General Museveni mentioned the planned merger of the different government parastatals and entities as part of the grand strategy to cut Governmwnr Expenditure and save taxpayer money.
“To achieve this, Government decided to rationalize Government departments to reduce duplications and wastage of taxpayer’s money and the Ministry of Public Service is finalizing the implementation plan for this decision.” Museveni noted.
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