By Namugerwa Martha
Parliament has passed a sh29trillion National Budget for the financial year 2017\18. The budget is higher by sh3 trillion compared to the current National Budget 2016\17 which was shs 26.3 trillion.
According to the budget report by the house’s committee on budget adopted on Wednesday by parliament, out of the shs 29 trillion will go towards recurrent budget, sh 11.4 trillion towards the development budget and shs 9.9 trillion towards statutory expenditure.
The budget is going to focus on increasing agriculture production and productivity for food insecurity and strategic exports and enhancing private sector development for promotion and import substitution.
In the budget, sectors like the works and transport, health, education and the Ministry of Defence will receive the highest share of the budget because the government will be focusing much on the intensity of energy and transport infrastructure development.
Focusing on intensifying energy and transport infrastructure development will help to lower production costs and completing oil related infrastructure development to enable commercialization and the first oil output in 2020.
In the new financial year, domestic revenues including grants are projected to increase by 18.06% against the projected revenues of FY 2016\17.
