Gov”t Backtracks On A Seed School Per Sub-County Policy
The government has backtracked on the policy to have a seed secondary school in every sub-county citing financial constraints and bloated lower administrative units that have made the policy untenable.
This was revealed by the minister of state for Finance Henry Musasizi while interfacing with the parliamentary committee on government assurances.
Appearing before the parliamentary committee on government assurances chaired by Dr. Abed Bwanika the Kimanya- Kabonera legislator to respond on the status of financing the policy of construction of a seed secondary school per sub-county, a technical school per county and a public university per region, the minister of state for finance Henry Musasizi told MPs that due to financial constraints, the policy is no longer tenable.
Musasizi emphasized that the policy was rolled out when administrative units were still few. But as it is now, it is unachievable due to the bloated lower administrative units which have since increased twofold.
Musasizi asked committee members to later explain to their constituencies why the government will not have schools constructed shortly instead of complaining. He volunteered to escort those MPs under pressure from their constituencies to explain the government’s position.
However, some legislators were not swayed by the government’s excuses, saying they have witnessed public funds mismanaged now and then. They asked the government to withdraw the assurance officially if they failed to implement the policy.
Bwanika resolved that the committee write to the prime minister to get the position of the government on seed schools before reporting back to parliament.
In the 2017/2018 financial year under the UGIFT program, the government programmed to implement the construction of 232 seed secondary schools in a phased manner but to date only 10
