By Leilah Bbaale
A section of members of parliament is concerned over the proposed merger of government agencies as the state focuses on saving Shs1 trillion from the rationalization.
Ntenjeru South Member of Parliament, Mr Patrick Nsanja, is opposed to the merger, saying services will not easily reach the grassroots because of bureaucracy in ministries
During the National Resistance Movement (NRM) parliamentary caucus, President Museveni urged members of parliament to support the merger of more than 30 government agencies, saying the strategic move will result in significant savings of at least Shs1 trillion annually for the nation.
However, Nsanja said the issue is not about heavy expenditure by the agencies, advisisng government to invent means of curbing corruption through which a lot of funds are lost.
He added the funds saved from corruption can easily be used to pay workers in the agencies instead of laying them off.
However, Dokolo South MP, Felix Okot Odongo, says the rationalization is curing redundancy, giving an example of the Ministry of Transport and the Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA), which he says are doing the same thing.
“When they created these agencies, there was no proper analysis of the advantages and the disadvantages. What was very clear is that there was a lot of duplication,” Odongo said.
