Can Government save money by reducing the number of agencies and authorities that it has created?
What was the thinking at the time of the creation of some of these agencies? Did government’s good intentions just ran out of control?
Was the formation of these agencies necessary, if not, will merging of these agencies back to their mother ministries carry meaning? is the perspective i want to elucidate in this piece.
The twists and turns
In 1995, Uganda promulgated a constitution that was supposed to have committed to a rationalized but decentalised system of governance.
Since then, the country seems to changed direction on how services are to be delivered to the people.
The government has since intensified its creation of numerous but unfunded districts from 39 in to 146 now, under the pretext of taking services closer to the people.
The districts that cannot deliver services due to underfunding have been created alongside the mushrooming Commissions, Authorities and Semi-autonomous bodies in every arm and leg of every Ministry. Over this same period, Uganda experienced a growth in Parliament size and Cabinet.
All this is what Gen. Salim Saleh Coined as the “Agencification of Agencies” where every ministry of government had to have an agency to implement its processes.
The NRM government committed a Fallacy of Adibaklum of reforming by addition rather than reforming by transformation.
In strategic areas like revenue collection, investment promotion, this was a great thought out policy by government.
A case in point, the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) was formed in the Ministry of Finance, planning and Economic Development, the Uganda World Life Authority (UWA) was formed in the Ministry of Tourism.
In 2012, Uganda was collecting sh2b a year from registration of Companies by a department in the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional affairs. Then in 2018 the Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB) was collecting around sh52b.
The creation of an agency really transformed the registration process and increased revenue collection from sh2b to sh52b and currently the projection of URSB is sh90b.
In 2019, UWA collected sh127b and its budget was 87 Billion shillings meaning it was earning more than it was spending thanks to rationalisation.
I actually think, if government is carrying out reforms to reduce expenditure, URSB, and UWA are some of the examples that can provide a model that will succeed.
The policy by government to rationalize was a bit good but the details of implementation had strategic mistakes.
The government recommended that; UWA was to be merged with the Ministry of Tourism, URSB to be Merged with Ministry of Justice, Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA) to be merged with the Central bank.
The IRA to central bank merger seemed nonsensical because IRA is not government funded, its funded by private insurance companies.
Another strategic mistake was to close down UNRA and make it a department into the Ministry of Works and Transport.
This meant that UNRA would shift all it technical expertise to the Ministry. Hon Allen Kagina had built systems and processes so that UNRA looked like a shining star of beauracratic competence.
Now government is abolishing over 1100 Engineers from UNRA back to the Ministry, which shows policy atrophy.
I would say that the Government of Uganda targeted creating dockets of efficiencies in a large sea of incompetence which will make policy coordination difficult.
Government should not have judged agencies by the revenue they collect but by the services they offer.
Ugandan government Deceptive
Going back to the drawing board, if the Ugandan Government Intended to carry out rationalization to save money and increase its performance, then the question should be how much money would be saved?
In any case, if the government of Uganda is serious about restraining its expenditure, then this is a deception.
This country in the last 2 years has given Magoolo sh780b which we are not sure of its return on investment, in addition the government gave sh560b to Atiac Sugar, and the government has pumped sh1.3trillion into the Ghost Lubowa hospital instead of refurbishing Mulago Hospital.
All this indicates that there is no will by the Ugandan Government to save money basing on this reckless spending.
If President Museveni does agree with rationalisation, then why is he creating all these agencies surrounding State House?
All he is doing is duplication of services through IGG, PPDA, Anti-corruption Office, ISO, CMI, ESO etc.
Rationalisation is a struggle over power, that power that was shifted from ministries to these Agencies, the beneficiaries are struggling to bring the power back. It is not true that Government will be saving money because of rationalisation.
The author is a political scientist and social entreprenuer.
