Uganda’s chocking debt—Government granted 650 billion dollars from IMF for Covid-19 and economic recovery
Civil Society Organizations under the Eastern Africa Trade Information and Negotiations Institute (SEATINI) are advising the Government to seek debt relief from her creditors to save resources necessary to fight the pandemic.
This comes at the time when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) decides to issue new Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to a tune of $650 billion USD to help address member countries’ liquidity challenges and enable them finance the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and support national recovery efforts.
This is in response to the Covid pandemic disruption that has greatly affected the country’s domestic revenue collections with the finance ministry registering a shortfall of over Shs. 2.4 trillion in revenue collections in the previous financial year. According to SEATINI, the situation has pushed the government to borrow heavily.