By Sofiat Adenekan-Abdul
The National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies, NILDS, is strengthening the capacity of Ugandan lawmakers to scrutinise public borrowing, debt management and government expenditure as part of efforts to improve parliamentary oversight.
The Institute is hosting members of Uganda’s Parliament Committee on National Economy for a five-day training and induction workshop in Abuja focusing on post-legislative scrutiny, legislative effectiveness, accountability and institutional learning.
The programme is bringing together Ugandan lawmakers and technical staff to examine public borrowing, loan guarantees, debt sustainability, fiscal management and the implementation of government-funded projects.
Opening the training, the Director-General of NILDS, Prof. Abubakar Sulaiman, said effective parliamentary oversight must go beyond lawmaking to include proper scrutiny of public resources.
“The effectiveness of a Parliament is determined not only by the quality of legislation it produces, but also by the depth of its oversight and the quality of its scrutiny of public finance.”
Sulaiman said lawmakers must have the technical capacity to interrogate complex economic and policy issues, particularly those relating to sovereign borrowing and public expenditure.
He urged participants to examine why governments borrow, the expected economic and social returns, the sustainability of the resulting debt and whether loan-funded projects are delivering their intended outcomes.
The DG said NILDS was not presenting Nigeria’s experience as a model for Uganda to replicate, but as an opportunity for comparative learning.
“Our objective is not to present the Nigerian experience as a template to be replicated in Uganda. Rather, it is to provide a platform for comparative learning, critical reflections and adaptation to the Uganda context.”
Leader of the Ugandan delegation and Chairperson of the Committee on National Economy, Hon. Jane Avur, said the delegation came to Nigeria to learn from the country’s experience and strengthen its approach to public resource management.
Avur identified domestic revenue mobilisation as one of Uganda’s major challenges, saying Parliament is working with the government to improve tax measures and support digital transformation in revenue collection.
“One of the key challenges we are facing is being able to raise revenue domestically, local revenue for implementing our budgets.”
She said Uganda is also encouraging online payments and electronic filing to reduce leakages in revenue collection.
“Everything is paid online and also even the filing now. We are encouraging the trading communities to file their returns online to avoid leakages.”
Deputy Chairperson of the committee, Hon. Achia Remigio, said the delegation was particularly interested in strengthening institutions responsible for fiscal management, national planning and the implementation of government programmes and projects.
Remigio, who had visited NILDS several times, said the Institute provides access to resource persons with practical experience in fiscal discipline, public finance management and national planning.
He said Uganda wants to strengthen its systems to ensure borrowed funds achieve their intended purpose.
“How do we ensure that the people, the reasons why we borrow money, and the people that are targeted, that those projects benefit the people that are planned for? That’s the most important.”
Remigio added that effective public finance management ultimately depends on the strength of institutional systems.
“It’s about systems, systems in place, and how those systems work.”
Another member of the Committee on National Economy, Hon. Kirumira Hassan, called for stronger cooperation between the Nigerian and Ugandan parliaments to promote better economic policies and development.
Kirumira said African countries should increasingly learn from one another and develop solutions suited to their own realities.
“That can only happen through cooperation within the African countries so that we can appreciate our issues domestically and appreciate issues in other countries.”
He said the delegation was interested in learning from Nigeria’s economic experience and understanding the processes that have shaped its development.
The five-day training is expected to strengthen the participants’ capacity to analyse economic and fiscal developments, scrutinise sovereign borrowing and loan guarantees, assess debt sustainability, monitor externally financed projects and conduct evidence-based parliamentary oversight.
The engagement also provides an opportunity for Nigeria and Uganda to deepen parliamentary cooperation and share institutional experiences on economic governance and public financial management.
