Speaker of Parliament, Anita Among, has resolved the year-long payment troubles of the Kampala Capital City Authority’s (KCCA) casual labourers.
Speaker Among said during a meeting with the KCCA leaders including Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago, that payments are to be made to the sweepers’ Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies (SACCOs) on Wednesday, March 06, 2024.
“Payment is going to be made tomorrow [and concluded there and then], not starting tomorrow; let us have these people paid, it looks ugly seeing them suffering; these are your mothers, wives and sisters; it is not a good sight, seeing them troubled and pained,” she said during the meeting held Tuesday, 05 March 2024 at Parliament House.
The street sweepers, who are organised in SACCOs, have gone for four months without pay, prompting their peaceful protest in front of Parliament on Thursday last week.
After addressing the protesting sweepers on at Parliament’s entrance, Among called a Monday, March 04 2024 meeting with KCCA Executive Director, Dorothy Kisaka and Ramathan Ggoobi, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development / Secretary to Treasury which resolved to clear the arrears.
In today’s meeting, Speaker Among advised Ms Kisaka to itemise the payment of the sweepers under the entity’s recurrent and not development expenditure as is the case today, which she said frustrates seamless releases, leading to such frustrations.
“The delay is because you budgeted for it as development expenditure; in the new financial year, it has to be put under recurrent expenditure,” she said.
The Minister for Kampala Capitla City and Metropolitan Affairs, Hon. Minsa Kabanda, was sighed to have the impasse resolved.
“We have been with this issue for over a year, and we are happy that you have helped us to finally resolve this problem,” she said.
Kisaka confirmed payment will be effected on Wednesday, March 06 2024.
Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago said the challenges arose following attempts to phase out the casual labourers under their SACCOs in favour of one company, which he said has been adamant about absorbing the existing work force.
He proposed the zoning of Kampala to accommodate the interests of the cleaners under their SACCOs, and also the company which has a running tender for city sanitation.
“It was very clear that we needed to divide Kampala into clusters, into the 10 constituencies so that ultimately, the SACCOs can have some areas and Seven Hills [the company] also runs others; [instead] there is a systematic move to phase out the old SACCOs,” he said.
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