Government has passed a resolution to increase the salaries of public servants across the board. This follows a Cabinet decision made during an extraordinary meeting that was chaired by President Yoweri Museveni on Saturday, December 9.
The phased salary review will give priority to workers in the sectors of; Education, Health, Judiciary, Internal Affairs, Defence and Security.
This was announced on Monday by the Minister of Public Service, Muruli Mukasa at a news conference held at Uganda Media Centre.
The Minister said that the first phase of salary enhancement will include Primary School teachers, Secondary School science teachers, local government leaders (Mayors, LC 5 and sub-county chairpersons), soldiers (Private to Sargent), policemen (Constable to Sargent) and prisons staff (Warder to Sargent).
In the same first phase will be all health workers, security officers, judicial officers and all scientists in their respective fields.
The remaining public servants are set to benefit from the next phase.
“A Cabinet special sitting resolved that all salaries will be enhanced in a phased manner beginning in July, 2018, next financial year,” Muruli Mukasa said.
He revealed that the salary readjustments were based on the country’s revenue, strategic priorities, ongoing government programs and commitments.
Following the resolutions from the Cabinet meeting, the Ministry of Public Service and that of Finance have been directed to fine tune the specific final salary figures that these public servants will get, by the end of this month.
“We urge all public servants to remain calm and devot themselves to the service of Ugandans. There should be no cause for extension of strikes because the reason is irrevocably being addressed by government,” Minister Mukasa said.
The State Minister of Finance for Planning David Bahati said; “We are in the process of incorporating this Cabinet decision in our budgeting process. Figures will be worked out and we hope they will be satisfactory to the workers”.
The Budget Framework Paper for the 2018/19 financial year is currently before Cabinet for consideration before it goes to Parliament.
Bahati said that the enhancement of the salary structure took into account the current economic situation and that exhaustive consultations were made with the different stakeholders.
On his part, the Minister of Security, Lt Gen Henry Tumukunde who was also present at the news conference said that the process to review salaries began in 2015 which implies that government has given it sufficient thought.
“I want to all workers to be able to understand that this budget has put into consideration that we have to entice them, but we want to be sure that whatever we give them, all other priorities are taken care of,” Lt Gen Tumukunde told the press.
The decision by government to comprehensively address salary inefficiencies comes at the heels of unresolved strikes by state prosecutors, judicial officers, medical doctors, nurses and midwives. All these public servants demand an increments in salary on top of better working conditions.
The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Service, Catherine Birakwate expressed optimism that the enhancement of salaries will address the problems of efficiency in performance.
