Opinion: Minimum Wage Threshold of shs136,000 doesn’t make sense

By Ronald Muhinda

This Minimum Wage Threshold of 136,000shs doesn’t make sense. The form of labour exploitation in Uganda is nauseating. It is very pathetic.

Students go to universities and other tertiary institutions, pay a minimum of 6M a year and others 11M a year and come get jobs where they can’t earn 4M a year. Parents who sold their property to to take children to university, their “working/employed” children cannot afford rent of 200,000shs a month.

I am speaking from experience because I have been there, lived and experienced that form of exploitation.

If anybody is pretending to be concerned about labour rights-wages, a minimum wage must be 20% more of the gross annual tuition fees paid to achieve the employee’s qualification. Or at least make it 10% more.

And special attention must be given to journalists. I can tell you journalists in this country are suffering in a way many Ugandans cannot imagine. Forget teachers. When I was a journalist, I had vowed never to do a story of teachers demanding for pay rise if I cannot do my own. At the time, I felt teachers were earning more than most of us in the profession earned.

I fact security forces and RDCs are paying journalists more than media houses. They only attack those journalists who refuse to cooperate. Media houses torture their employees more than security.