Public Debt Transparency in Uganda : A Stock-Taking of Public Debt Data Transparency, and Disclosure of Debt Management and Domestic Borrowing Practices
With public debt levels rising in Uganda, debt transparency is critical for providing accountability to the general public, enabling informed decisions by domestic businesses, and allowing foreign creditors to understand borrowing trends. Debt and debt management transparency improve accountability...
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| Format: | Report |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2021
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/672251620722198288/public-debt-transparency-in-uganda-a-stock-taking-of-public-debt-data-transparency-and-disclosure-of-debt-management-and-domestic-borrowing-practices http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35511 |
| Summary: | With public debt levels rising in Uganda, debt transparency is critical for providing accountability to the general public, enabling informed decisions by domestic businesses, and allowing foreign creditors to understand
borrowing trends. Debt and debt management transparency improve accountability and, potentially, borrowing outcomes. Over the past decade, the emergence of new external creditors in Uganda has opened new sources of financing and has in parallel increased the complexity of public debt portfolios. This
makes debt and debt management transparency even more important.
While new sources of funding can provide opportunities to advance
development goals, they can also lead to significant economic costs, if
debt is not managed well. Uganda is doing well in terms of public debt
and debt management transparency compared to other Sub-Saharan,
IDA-eligible countries, when assessed through the lens of the World
Bank’s (WB) Public Debt Heat Maps. These Heat Maps present an
assessment based on the availability, completeness and timeliness
of public debt statistics and debt management documents posted on
national authorities’ websites. The continuous efforts in publishing
debt data in Uganda have resulted in good data disclosures of explicit
and implicit public debt data when compared to peers. That said, the
transparency stock-taking is not designed to make statements about the
accuracy of the data or the quality of the analyses (the in-house debt
management strategy and debt sustainability analysis) nor does it make
statements about institutional shortcomings and legal weaknesses that
would need to be addressed to arrive at sound, transparent borrowing
processes. Despite the good outcomes of the transparency assessment
based on the WB Heat Map methodology, the report singles out a few
dimensions that require further attention such as: i. reducing time lags
by publishing domestic arrears data semiannually, ii. providing more
granularity on state-owned enterprise debt by listing the largest ten with
the corresponding debt breakdown, iii. including a section on collateralized
debt in the Annual Debt Report and minimizing confidentiality clauses;
and iv. where permissible publishing entire or parts of contracts to further
enhance transparency. |
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