The Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities is seeking Shs259.1bn in the FY 2022/23 to revamp the sector that has been worst hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.
While presenting the Budget Framework Paper for FY 2022/23 before the Parliamentary Committee on Tourism, Trade and Industry on Thursday, the State Minister for Tourism, Bahinduka Martin Mugarra, said that there is need for increased funding if the tourism sector is to recuperate from the devastating effects of COVID-19.
He said that underfunding in addition to budget cuts have worsened the situation and decimated the tourism competitiveness.
“The appropriation to the tourism sector has historically been below the threshold required for the industry to perform its role meaningfully. A sector that generates about 10% of the GDP cannot be continually allocated less than 0.4% of the national budget,” Mugarra said.
The Tourism sector has been allocated a Medium Term Expenditure Framework provision of Shs176.9billion for FY 2022/23 which will be distributed to two votes; Tourism Ministry, Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), Uganda Hotel and Tourism Training Institute, Uganda Wildlife Research and Training Institute, Uganda Wildlife Conservation Education Center and Uganda Tourism Board.
Mugarra requested the committee to increase their funding from the provisional Shs176.9bn to Shs259.1bn if the sector is to operate at full throttle.
“I am requesting this honourable committee that in addition to extra funds The tourism sector was seriously hit by COVID-19 with foreign tourist arrivals dropping by 69.3% to 473,085 from 1,542,620 visitors in 2019, causing a drop in foreign exchange earnings from US$1.6bn in 2019 to US$0.5bn in 2020.
Statistics show that Uganda injects the least funds compared to other East African countries like Kenya and Tanzania. For example, in FY 2020/21, Tanzania and Kenya allocated more than 1% (Shs617.1bn and Shs532.9bn respectively) of their total budget to tourism compared to Uganda that allocated less than 0.5% (Shs197.3bn).
This means that both Tanzania and Kenya injects 3 times more resources in tourism than Uganda and this has translated to more tourist arrivals. At least 7 in 10 visitors to Kenya or Tanzania are leisure visitors compared to Uganda where only in 10 visitors are leisure tourists.
