The government in partnership with Overseas Development Institute of the United Kingdom, has unveiled an online portal to enable citizens monitor how the government spends money.

Secretary to the Treasury, Keith Muhakanizi, said the website portal, www.budget.go.ug, would provide details of how money has been spent for each quarter.

"You have been saying that there's no transparency in government spending, now I'm saying let us monitor the expenditures together," Muhakanizi said.

Muhakanizi said it is time for Ugandans to monitor where and how their money was being used by all government departments rather than wait for the Auditor General's report. The new development comes at a time when Uganda continues to lose billions of shillings due to poor accountability control mechanisms.

The Auditor General's report for 2012, released in June this year, indicates that in the ministry of Public Service, about Shs 165bn was misappropriated. Similar stories happened in many other government ministries and agencies, according to the AG report.

The challenge now remains at how frequently these portals will be updated. The trend has been one of sluggish uploads, leaving readers with outdated information.