President Museveni has called a special Cabinet meeting at State House Entebbe to discuss the Budget and the proposed 2016 electoral reforms.
Cabinet usually meets on Wednesdays but yesterday's meeting, a Cabinet source told Saturday Monitor, was called because the President missed the Wednesday session "yet there are urgent issues to discuss."
Government spokesman Ofwono-Opondo confirmed the State House meeting but was not definitive about the agenda.
"This is not the first time the President has called a special sitting of Cabinet. He does not attend Cabinet all the time so he calls it from time to time," Mr Opondo said, adding: "The issue of electoral reforms should be on the agenda and the Budget, because the new law requires that the Budget is read in May, not July," he added.
The Cabinet source, who did not want to be quoted, said the new amended Public Finance Act requires that the Budget be availed to Parliament earlier for review. The source said that is what prompted the special Cabinet meeting.
This week, Daily Monitor reported that the new Finance minister, Mr Matia Kasaija, had requested Parliament to approve a staggering Shs800b supplementary budget to cater for "unforeseen emergencies."
It was not clear if this would form part of the agenda of the State House meeting. By press time, details of what transpired at the meeting were not yet out.
The debate on a raft of reforms mooted by a consortium of civil society and political parties has since taken shape, with the ruling National Resistance Movement, agreeing with the opposition parties on at least 43 of the proposed 48 reforms under the auspices of the Inter Party Organisation for Dialogue, a loose club of parties with representation in Parliament.
This would be the first time Cabinet sits to deliberate on the electoral reforms, among which is to seek a reconstitution of the current Electoral Commission to make it more credible and neutral.
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