The Effect of Budget Execution on Health Service Delivery in Lira District, Northern Uganda

Abstract

Budget execution is at the core of government businesses globally. This paper examines the effect of budget execution on health service deliver in Lira district, northern Uganda. We sampled two government-aided health Center IVs of Amach and Ogur in Lira district. We adopted a case study design and employed a mixed method approach. We sampled 78 respondents out of 96 health workers which included administrators, finance department, health workers, and health unit management committee. Simple random sampling technique and purposive sampling, were used to select the respondents. We used self-administered questionnaires to collect quantitative data and an interview guide to collect qualitative data. We used descriptive and inferential statistics (correlation and regression) to analysequantitative data andcontent analysisfor qualitative data to supplement quantitative data. The findings revealed a statistically significant positive relationship between budget execution and health service delivery (R = .718; p-value) and 51.5% (R Square = .515) aggregate effect of budget performance on health service delivery. These findings imply that budget performance is likely to register over 51.5% variations in the health service delivery meaning there are other factors that account for about 48.5%. However, budget monitoring is more influential in predicting changes in health service delivery. The findings further revealed that budget execution process and monitoring had significant effects on health service delivery. We conclude that budget performance significantly affects service delivery in health CentreIVs in northern Uganda. This paper contributes an original empiricalevidence of the association between budget performance and health service delivery in northern Uganda. In order to improve health service delivery, Lira district Local Government should considerincreasing financial supportto Health CentreIVs and strengthen budget monitoring.