Oulanyah burial budget revised to Shs1.2bn after public outcry

KAMPALA, UGANDA: Government has revised the burial budget for the send-off of the late former Speaker Jacob Oulanyah to shs 1.2 billion after an alarming Shs2.5 billion allocation caused a public outcry over unnecessary expenses and projected cash bonanza.

With the body of the late Jacob Oulanyah jetting into the country today, the breakdown of his burial budget had initially attracted public criticism with many scholars referring to it as an extravagant burial and a means by some officials on the National Organizing Committee of the burial to take home bags of money.

The NOC, headed by Presidency minister Milly Babalanda last week submitted an alarming Shs2.5bn burial budget, later approved by the finance ministry saying the cost of the burial itemized was in line with the status of the deceased former speaker.

In an analysis of the burial budget, it was revealed that more than 1bn shillings was to spent on the day Oulanyah will be laid to rest (Friday, April 8th), something which many scholars and public commentators highly critiqued.

Other expenses in the original budget included; A-Plus Funeral Management (Shs226 million), Acholi Parliamentary Group (Shs313 million), finance committee (Shs248.7 million), security (Shs158.5 million), and fuel (Shs124 million).

Now, following the outcry and country uproar, the State Minister for Finance, Planning and Economic Development (General Duties), Mr. Henry Musasazi, on Tuesday and again yesterday said they had cut the budget to Shs1.8 billion and Shs1.2 billion, respectively.

In an interview with DailyMonitor paper on Thursday, minister Musasizi said: “We have given them (national organizing committee headed by Presidency Minister Milly Babalanda) a limit of Shs1.2 billion.”

“They are going to revise [the original budget] and come up with the breakdown of the Shs1.2 billion, it is not our job [as ministry of Finance] to do that,” he said.

This means the initial budget, which members of the Acholi Parliamentary Group claimed was inflated, has in total been more than halved, and the final allocation is nearly equal to what organisers had planned to spend on the burial day alone.

This meant an almost 30 percent, or Shs700m, reduction of the original Shs2.5b budget.
In yesterday’s interview, minister Musasazi attributed the second budget cut to the threshold funds, saying “that is what we can find”.

The Clerk to Parliament, Mr Adolf Mwesigye, who doubles as the accounting officer, had been informed about the slashed budget, he said.

“Like I told you earlier (Tuesday), we were going to revise it [the budget] further down and that is what we have done, and we have communicated to the Clerk of Parliament,” he said.

Mr Chris Obore, the director for communication and public affairs at Parliament, yesterday said he was “aware unofficially” of a second revision of the funeral and burial budget for the first Speaker of the 11th Parliament.

Oulanyah, 56, died in a United States hospital on March 20 and his body is expected to arrive by Ethiopian Airlines this afternoon, laying the ground for a series of funeral activities ahead of an April 8 State burial.

The budget for the former Speaker’s internment, like the costs of airlifting and treating him at the University of Washington Medical Centre, has been accompanied by polarising public debate.

The budget cut comes barely a day after, the Inspectorate of Government, Ms Beti Kamya on Tuesday said her office had plans to investigate the cash bonanza to establish possibility of impropriety.

Efforts to reach Ms. Babalanda for details of items to be affected by the budget cuts were futile by press time.