Moroto maintains education, administration as budget priorities

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT |   Moroto District Council has maintained education and administration sectors as top priorities in their budget estimates for the 2019/2020 financial year. The 20.2 billion Shillings budget was approved by council on Wednesday.

The education sector received an additional 500 million Shillings from the 5.2 billion Shillings appropriated in the current financial year, while administration, which is currently at 4.5 billion Shillings has been raised to 5.6 billion Shillings in the next financial year.

Funding to the Health sector has been reduced from 4.3 billion Shillings to 2.7 billion Shillings in the year 2019/2020.

Christine Akot, the leader of government business in Moroto District Council says Education, which has remained the top priority in the district for three consecutive years still needs more funds to improve on the welfare of teachers at school and fight negative attitudes.

“We still have more children at home, almost half of the number enrolled. Many of our children are in the mining sites in Rupa and Tapac sub counties. Some of our teachers sleep in classrooms and other share houses. We don’t have enough classrooms, among other demands to improve on our education”, she said.

Paul Oputa, the District Education Officer says more funding is needed to reduce the teacher-house ratio which stands at 4:1.

The district budget estimates for 2019/2020 reduced from 20.4 to 20.2 billion Shillings. Central government is expected to raise 88.1 per cent of the total budget, while 8.5 of the funding is expected to come from development partners. 3.4 per cent of the budget is expected from d local revenue.

This indicates a reduction in donor funding from 15.8 per cent in 2018/2019 financial year. The new budget estimates also indicate a slight fall in local revenue from 3.6 per cent to 3.4 per cent in the next financial year.

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