The Minister of State for Kampala, Benna Namugwanya has revealed that government is set to increase salaries for the political leadership of Kampala effective the 2018/19 financial year.
While appearing before the Parliament Committee on Presidential Affairs to defend the Ministry Policy statement, Namugwanya noted that KCCA has increased the budget for political governance from Shs 15.8 bn to Shs 17.8 bn to cater for the emoluments of councilors.
The Minister said on Thursday that part of the money to cater for the increased emoluments will come from levies on boda bodas and taxis.
“This increase comes as an implementation of a decision that was taken last year. The councilors were supposed to get the increase this financial year but unfortunately, our revenue collections were affected by the non payment of the road user fees by taxi operators,” Namugwanya told the Committee of Parliament.
“We shall be able to implement the increment since our revenues are to raise a bit, especially the road user fees because the President has helped us engage the various stakeholders and they agreed on what to pay and we are very sure they will pay.”
The Minister also informed the Committee that KCCA has earmarked Shs 800 million in the next financial year budget 2018/19 to organize the boda boda industry.
She said that there is a Cabinet memo on boda bodas and they would like to come up with a system to better manage boda bodas so they can begin paying road user fees.
“As a city, we are in the process of organizing boda bodas which have become employment where people earn a living. But of late, people look at them as criminals, so we want to organize this industry,” Namugwanya explained in regard to the need for the budgeted funds.
She observed that the proposed budget will help to cater for the costs involved which include; stationery, computers, labour and enabling biometric registration.
“After registration, we shall also organize them to carry out their elections, which will also cost money during the election process,” Namugwanya emphasized.
The decision to revise the salaries of the political leaders within Kampala upwards was first revealed yesterday by Minister of Information, Frank Tumwebaze while briefing the press on the resolutions made by Cabinet earlier this week.