The adopted budget is expected to provide hard constraints on agency
resources while giving them flexibility in exactly how they use the resources for
service delivery. It is particularly critical that planning efforts be linked to the
budget to keep both efforts realistically on track, sometimes working through
a formal medium-term budget framework to put everything together. The link
makes planning more meaningful and the budget better informed.
The budget process itself is a recurring cycle in which (a) the chief
executive of the government, with the operating agencies, develops a service
plan to respond to the conditions anticipated in the upcoming year; (b) the
appropriate legislative body reviews that plan and adopts a program response
based on that plan; (c) the administration puts the adopted program into
effect; and (d) an external review body audits and evaluates the executed
program and reports its findings to the legislative body and the citizenry.
13
In
contrast to the informality and uncertainty found in many developing
countries, local governments in Uganda follow a standard budget process
and face no need for approval from the central government (Obwona and
others 2000)—a good beginning, because an established budget process is a
fundamental requirement of local fiscal administration.