The Minister for Pubic Service has promised to pay public servants who missed out on their June salaries by end of the month. “Those who didn’t get their salary under the supplementary three will access their payroll for July 28,” junior Public Service minister Ssezi Mbaguta said yesterday. Junior Finance minister Matia Kasaija also told Parliament: “the government has agreed that we can’t continue punishing the good officers because of ghosts. We are releasing money, and the warrant of release is on my desk. I will sign them tonight.” The ministers’ promise came after Parliament ordered the two ministries to expedite the payment of salaries to teachers, police officers and health workers. The order came after Aruu County legislator Odonga Otto complained to Speaker Rebecca Kadaga, over what he termed as a deliberate government move to blackmail Parliament. “You blackmailed Parliament that if we don’t pass a supplementary, the teachers won’t be paid, now that we passed it, where is the money for their salaries?” Mr Otto said. Not paid Hundreds of civil servants, including teachers, spolice officers and a section of health workers have not been paid salaries since April. More than a fortnight ago, the government put Parliament on tenterhooks to pass both supplementary budgets two and three, saying it is where the salaries of the civil servants were. However, supplementary budget three was not passed because it had been overtaken by time. Speaker Kadaga tasked the ministers concerned to explain what happened to the money appropriated for salaries. “We sat here for long hours appropriating this money. Where is the money for the civil servants?” she asked. However, Ms Mbaguta said the salaries were in the supplementary schedule number three which was never passed. “Parliament discussed the third schedule and we were advised that it was caught up with time,” she said. During the scrutiny of the third supplementary budget, the Parliament Budget Committee discovered that more than 5,000 teachers had been erroneously deleted from the payroll by the Ministry of Public Service during its audit. It is those teachers, and other civil servants, that the Shs46 billion requested under the third supplementary was supposed to address.
Posted on: Wed, 17 Jul 2013 03:28:54 +0000
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