By David Rupiny
The Finance Ministry’s Permanent Secretary and Secretary to the Treasury, Dr. Ramathan Ggoobi, has said the size of Uganda’s economy has increased to about USD 70 billion, meaning that Uganda has to grow the economy about 7-fold compared to the earlier targeted 10-fold growth to achieve the goal of building a USD 500-billion- economy in the next 15 years.
Appearing on NBS Television, Dr. Ggoobi said that for the first time, there is policy consensus in the whole of Government and the resultant alignment by the Private Sector, Financial Sector and Development Partners.
The PSST also noted that the entire government is aligned in terms of planning, as evidenced by the fourth national development plan (NDP IV).
“Policy consensus is the first step, and that is where we have been failing,” said Ggoobi, adding that the Asian Tigers were able to transform their economies because of policy consensus.
Unlike other election years, the PSST said last year was unique, adding that it was characterized by stable inflation, stable shilling, highest growth rates and growth in exports, especially coffee.
He thanked the Bank of Uganda (central bank) for working closely with the finance ministry to coordinate the fiscal and monetary policy and to keep the economy stable.
Dr. Ggoobi said the greatest risk to achieving the USD 500 billion economy as planned is the low mobilization of domestic revenue. He said this must be addressed urgently by fully implementing the revenue mobilization strategy.
In FY 2026/27, domestic revenue is projected to increase to Shs 45.6 trillion from Shs 35.7 trillion in FY 2025/26. Government is targeting to increase the ratio of tax to GDP from about 14% to about 20% by 2030.
The PSST also highlighted challenges to do with the narrow tax base, which leaves the tax burden on the few compliant taxpayers, and informality, which makes it hard to tax.
Going forward, Ggoobi said Government is making key reforms in several areas such as procurement to eliminate corruption, improving implementation of projects, giving priority to concessional financing to finance infrastructure development and investing deliberately in value addition, especially for coffee, minerals, fruits and vegetables as well as beef and dairy.
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