Uganda, April 26 -- Citibank has told government to stick to approved budgets and stop the habit of having supplementary budgets.

Such requests, Citibank argues, distort budget planning and lead to excessive borrowing.

This comes at a time when government has twice tabled two supplementary requests in the 2023/24 financial year leading to a Shs7.57 trillion off-budget expenditure, thus pushing the budget from Shs52.7 trillion to Shs60.2.

Speaking in an interview on Wednesday in Kampala, Dr David Cowan, a Citibank Africa economist and managing director in charge of research, said Uganda needs to reform its spending by sticking to approved budgets.

"The policy should be no to supplementary budgets. Supplementary [requests] should be an ...