Uganda poverty development foundation

UPDF military arsenal

Uganda
Poverty
Development
Foundation

The (UPDF) Museveni`s pet project is the single sole cause of wide spread poverty in Uganda previously according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies it is estimated the UPDF has a total strength of 40,000–45,000.

The trend for years in Uganda has been tripling of the budgetary allocation for the defense sector, government has been compelled to borrow from multilateral sources in disguise of project financing yet these loans end up to satisfy Museveni`s ego of endless professionalization and modernisation the army ,in fact both domestic and external borrowing has hit the roofs because of the military expenditures.

The apetite to spend in the defense sector has been rising since the lates 1990s and its putting the countrys meagre budget under strain last financial year the defense expenditure reached the one trillion mark considering that its a very conservative figure,word is that other funds earmarked for infrastructural developments are actually for strategic spending so they use these allocations to dupe the unsuspecting Ugandans and development partners.It could be of the earmarked national budget money, 50% might be entirely on the army and the rest diverted into other things.

The UPDF has also been the subject of controversy in Uganda due to the open level of corruptions and historical scandals ranging from Junk helicopters,undersized uniforms procured from China,Dura cement and its generals being one of the richest citizens with unexplained source of wealth.Between 1990 and 2005, the army payroll had at least 18,000 ghost soldiers, according to a report by General Sejusa and this is still a persistant problem, for example in one sitting in Public accounts committe the defense officials presented a purchase receipt of 2 million shs for a single cooking saucepan.

According to FDC party president Mugisha Muntu he says Musevenis is so manuplative and it has become difficult to discuss whether the money allocated to the Defence budget is spent on what it is meant for.

Uganda is an agricultural based economy and up to 80% of Ugandans are engaged in agriculture alone but its not one of those sectors the goverment considers as a priority sector considering the paltry allocation in the budget process. The UPDF with 45.000 soldiers is allocated 1 trillion shs in essence means each Ugandan soldiers is valued at 222million shs,this is a gross waste and misuse of the strained resorces.
What can justify a small country gigantic expenditure on defence alone?,we should be allocating more money to economic and social sectors like education and agriculture ,ironically Ugandan civil servants go without salaries for several months, yet goverment is on a blind spending spree of buying military toys.Parliament is constantly bombarded with supplementary budget requests in million dollars and external loan approval in equal proportion.

From 2011 Uganda surpassed Kenya for the first time in military expenditure a new global arms expert report shows. Uganda spent US$1.02 billion; about double Kenya’s US$735 million.Uganda’s acquisition of 6 Su-30MK Russian jets in the same year was outside the budget and also reports that Uganda ordered a new batch of weapons—tanks and anti-tank missiles.
The figure also does not include classified expenditure that is usually Defence’s biggest component. Because of national security, the army does not reveal certain expenditures.
All these expenditure is a burden on taxpayers of Uganda in the 2013/14 budget, security and Defence was top most priority. The question is why spend so much on the military when Uganda`s growth rate has stagnated for years,the shillings is at the all time low and worst balance of payment.

Uganda continues to perform poor scores in E in Transparency International’s Government Defence Anti-Corruption Index, global analysis of corruption risk in defence establishments.
International Institute for Strategic Studies notes that ex