By Leonard Kamugisha Akida,
NATIONAL
The Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) has proposed for a significantly reduced number of government ministries for better service delivery.
According to the FDC, the level of efficiency of the public service is adversely affected by duplication of effort, unclear lines of responsibility as a result of having a too many Government Ministries.
“FDC believes its high time we reduced on ministries to have a total of 21 ministers if service delivery is to be realized,” FDC proposed. “The current cost of running Government operations including wages, salaries, interest payment and commitment fees, continue to higher than the development expenditure, limiting the resources available for service delivery.”
This follows a recent proposal by the government to merge different over 30 ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) with a hope to save save at least 1 trillion annually.
Mulindwa Walid Lubega, the deputy secretary for publicity (publication and documentation) for FDC said limiting the size of the Cabinet and consequently of Ministries will not only minimize on hight public expenditure that is burdening taxpayers but also significantly improve service delivery in the country and empower line ministries to make decisions consistent to government policies.
“This conversation is coming in at time when we have a bloated cabinet of over 80 Ministries like ministry without portfolio or Minister incharge of General duties […] We believe such ministries like general duties, minister without portfolio, are redundant and their relevancy is in rumour mongering,” said Mulindwa.
He also proposed for merger of ministries like ministry of Karamoja affairs, Luwero triangle, Teso affairs, Bunyoro affairs, Northern Uganda affairs among others into a single ministry in charge of special regions as opposed to having stand alone ministries.
Additionally, the FDC welcomed the decision to rationalize state MDAs but suggested for a phased merger basing on priority areas.
“Parliament should request from the ministry of public service a comprehensive phase by phase strategies to fast track the rationalization of MDAs to eliminate redundancies in the medium term, reduce the cost of running Government and improve efficiency,” FDC suggested.
