"Money consuming government agencies and departments/arms (like Parliament and others) have continued to receive lots of money than production facilitating MDAs - which are critical in creating jobs and related opportunities," says Ramathan Ggoobi, the senior economics lecturer at Makerere University Business School.

"The coronavirus pandemic has helped us to once again demonstrate the economic capacity and the vast opportunities that our country has," Kasaija said, "The budget for Financial Year 2020/21 will support the economy to fully recover, harness the potential that we have, and get back to our progressive journey of double digit GDP growth rate."

It is now estimated that the economy will grow by just 3.1% in the financial year ending June 30, about 40% slower than the average growth rate of 5.4% in the previous four years.

Even the new measures in the budget which Kasaija said would stimulate the economy to safeguard livelihoods, create jobs, support businesses, and ensure industrial recovery, are not universally convincing; not least his claim that "the budget would focus on production and not consumption".

That is an 8% increase from last year in taxes on business laying off workers, cutting salaries, and crying out for waivers over the COVID-19 crisis.