The Parliament of Uganda previously recommended the provision of shs 765.62 billion to the Electoral Commission for the first phase of the 2026 general election activities.
This comes after government only provided shs8.638 billion in EC's 2024/25 budget, leaving a funding gap of Shs 756.988 billion.
The Commission told Members of Parliament that if the first phase activities were not funded, the Commission would be forced to extend them to the following Phase. Still, most activities have statutory timelines and have to be done in a chronological order that cannot be changed.
Parliament also recommended that the salaries of Electoral Commission staff be enhanced by an additional shs11.16 billion to stamp out anxiety among the workers.
The salary enhancement proceeded with the 2017 Parliament resolution that required the Electoral Commission's enhanced remuneration to be implemented effective 2017/18.
The MPs were informed that the Ministry of Finance only released the first two installments amounting shs25.91 billion, but the third and final installments worth shs11.16 billion has not been released to date.
The Electoral Commission budget is set to rise to shs149.61 billion this financial year from shs148.890 billion in the financial year 2023/24.
From this, the EC is expected to spend shs38.39 billion on salaries with non-wage expenditure amounting to shs107.503 and development expenditure worthy of shs3.72 billion.
