Government through the Ministry of Defence and Veteran Affairs is set to commence with paying of pensions and gratuities to the military veterans and their survivors.
In 2016, President Yoweri Museveni established the department of veteran affairs to take care of veteran issues, however ever since its establishment, only a few and lucky veterans have benefited from this establishment.
In 2020, government was to pay Shs 91bn to over 10,549 veterans who had been waiting for a long time. However, the outbreak of Covid-19 made the process impossible since the economy was not stable but according to Oleru Huda Abason,the state Minister for Defence and Veteran Affairs, the process is commencing soon this month.
While addressing journalists at Uganda Media Centre on Tuesday, the minister said so far 11,000 out of the expected number of 68,000 backlog cases of military veterans and beneficiaries have received their payment and more are yet to be paid. The payment process will start with a countrywide exercise in a bid to verify the military veterans’ Payroll.
The process is geared towards updating records to ensure payroll integrity, for smooth payment of pensions and gratuities to the military veterans or survivors who have not yet received payment from the government. The exercise will equally target all veterans and Estate Administrators as well as widows and widowers already receiving a monthly pension.
“This exercise slated for 17th January 2022 to 4th February 2022 will be supported by the office of the Resident District Commissioner (RDC) and the District Internal Security Office, (DISO) and the office of local Council 5Chairperson of the various Districts in collaboration with the various Local Government and the Judiciary/Magistrates,” Oleru said.
She added that to ease the exercise, ten (10) zones have been created countrywide and a team from the Ministry of Defense and Veteran Affairs will visit each District.
Categories to be handled include; Backlog which consists a; Living veterans, members under this cluster are supposed to present; discharge certificate issued by Uganda People Defence Force (UPDF) directorate of records for the last discharge certificate, provisional 2010 document form with the officer’s photograph and other requirements such National Identity card.
Second is the Estate of veterans Deceased in retirement category, Estate of officers and militants deceased while in active service, Ex-Gratia-Living veteran, Ex-Gratia-Estate also claimants under this cluster are supposed to present the death certificate, minutes of the family meeting and original certificate letters of administration.
The second category consists of a) Living veterans on Payroll, Estates of officers and militants deceased while in active service on payroll, Estate of officers and militants deceased while in active service on the payroll.
“Claimants for pensions and gratuities of the deceased, executioner or administrators of estates who have not yet obtained letters of administrators of estates who have not yet obtain letters of administration are required hold family meeting with full authorization and endorsement of the Chief Administrative Officer of the District the deceased Military Veteran hails from,” she said.
Oleru however warned the beneficiaries to avoid fraudsters who purport to help them process their payments faster and end up extorting money from them.
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