Activists worry about growing tax burden on citizens as debt burden eats into budget

With the reading of the next financial year’s national budget drawing close, activists have continued to raise concerns about Uganda’s increasing debt burden and the huge chunk of the national budget it takes.

According to the Program Manager at the Uganda Debt Network Christine Ibingiro, although the budget has been raised from Shs52 Trillion to Shs72 Trillion, it is unlikely to benefit the citizens because upto Shs34 Trillion out of this amount will go towards facilitating payment of the national debt.

She says this implies that the government will resort to local borrowing, a situation which will increase the tax burden on Ugandans.

“We are concerned about this level of borrowing by the government by the domestic market for obvious reasons businesses or the private sectors has been ailing, recently has recently releveled that the income tax payers have been reducing, businesses have gone down generally,” Ms. Ibingiro said.

The minister of finance is expected to read the national budget for the financial year 2024/25 on June 13th

 

 

Written by Moses Ndhaye