The opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party has warned that Uganda’s debt burden could spiral out of control if the Government does not tame its appetite for borrowing.

The concern was raised by FDC party spokesman and Kiira Municipality MP Semujju Ibrahim Nganda who addressed journalists at the party headquarters in Najjanankumbi, Kampala. Semujju asked multilateral lenders to stop giving Uganda credit because the debt burden will be borne by the poor taxpayers.

Figures from the International Monetary Fund indicate that Uganda’s national debt was forecast to continuously increase between 2022 and 2027 by 11.5 billion US dollars (or 48 percent). The national debt is estimated to amount to 35 billion US dollars in 2027.

According to a standard set by the East African Community, member states should not have a debt portfolio that is more than 50% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP). By June 2022, Uganda’s debt to GDP ratio stood at 48.6%, a few percentage points from the agreed EAC ceiling of 50%.

This was the focus of FDC party Spokesperson Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda who raised concern that in the draft 2022/2023 national budget, debt financing and interest payment has increased.

Semujju, who is also the Kiira Municipality MP, blamed this rising debt on what he called government extravagance and its failure to address the reasons for borrowing in the first place.

Semujju says the FDC party has launched a campaign dubbed Red Alert where the party will write to MPs not to approve unclear Government loan requests and also write to European countries and other multilateral leaders not to lend any more money to Uganda.

According to the FDC, each of the estimated 47 million Ugandans will have to pay at least 1.4 million shillings to clear the Uganda’s current debt stock.