Amos Lugolobi the state minister for ficance in charge of planning during the lauch
HABARI DAILY I Kampala, Uganda I The National Planning Authority (NPA) has fronted a new 5-year development blueprint with a price tag of sh413 Trillion.
Dubbed the National Development Plan IV (NDPIV), which is based on the theme: “Sustainable industrialization for inclusive growth, employment, and wealth creation,” has been hailed as the country’s crossway to modernity.
Officials were enthusiastic during the launch, which was held at the Office of the Prime minister (OPM) auditorium, on Wednesday, saying it will help the country achieve a double digit growth rate.
“The cardinal aim of this development plan is to deliver Uganda’s national vision of moving the country from a peasant society to a modern and prosperous country by 2040,” said Charles Olweny Ojok, the National Planning Authority’s deputy executive director,
The NDPIV was recently approved by Cabinet and is set to come into force in July 2025.
According to Olweny, it is also the last Plan to deliver the Global Agenda 2030 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Ramathan Ggoobi, the Permanent Secretary, ministry of Finance, said that during this planning cycle, there is a need to ensure that Uganda’s development plans are grounded in the actual fundamentals of availability of resources.
“This will help us prevent the pitfalls of over-ambitious projections and underfunded priorities,” he said.
Ggoobi said because the country is financially stable, policy makers have to enhance the fiscal policy credibility by avoiding disruptive budget shortfalls, which we have faced in NDPIII.
“Let’s ensure realistic planning and budgeting. The programs and MPFs should develop realistic plans that align with the IPFs provided. Overestimating resources or underestimating the costs will lead to inefficiencies and potential budget shortfalls which necessitate those things which really everybody needs,” he said during the launch.
He said in the NDPIV, Uganda’s fiscal discipline will be greatly tested.
“Those things are going to be tested but no one is working to solve them. We must now commit to address them so that we strengthen our budget credibility,” he said.
He pointed out the issue of the strategic addition of new priorities. “Once the ongoing commitments are adequately catered for, programs should identify and incorporate new priorities in line with the tenfold growth strategy. Going forward in the next five years, Uganda is focusing on getting the economy to grow much faster than we have grown in the past decade.”
He said there is a need to ensure that NDPIV is fiscally realistic by effectively allocating resources, where indicative planning figures have been introduced, taking into consideration all of the government commitments that are spilling over into the NDPIV and have been inherited from the previous plans.
Ggoobi said the total requirement to deliver NDPIV currently stands at Shs413 trillion shillings in the five years of implementation.
Amos Lugolobi, the minister of state for Finance in charge of Planning, pointed out that the major focus of the NDPIV include agro-industrialization, tourism development, mineral development, including oil and gas, and then science, technology and innovation, including IT.
He said these areas were selected based on their impact and alignment with the national development goals.,
