The minister of finance Matia Kasaijja has decried the inequalities in salary structures, which he claims is affecting service delivery by government.
Mr Kasaijja was commenting on the current situation in the country that is characterized by industrial actions from civil servants in the judiciary and health sector.
“A single driver of an institute is earning about Shs5m for chauffeuring his boss, while medics in Mulago hospital are taking home far less, where is the equality?” Kasaijja said.
“This is why we are talking about harmonization, the driver can not be offering more service than a doctor, he should not be earning that much,” he added.
In the past couple of years, different government workers have laid down their tools, citing poor remuneration with the latest being medical doctors, days after prosecutors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwcBbg24YBk
Some public servants are now agitated by their paycheck, with many questioning why government continues paying millions of shillings to officials in statutory bodies beyond the government salary scale.
A recent leaked report of a committee of Parliament ranks monthly salaries of top government officials —the highest-paid chief executives across all government parastatals, authorities and commissions. The report indicated that Bank of Uganda governor earns 53.3 million shillings, URA’s commissioner general 40 million, NSSF’s Managing Director 39 million, UCC boss 37.3, national water and sewerage cooperation ED 30 million UNBS director 20 million shillings for UNBS executive director.
Minister Kasijja says these salary disparities must stop and the new salary structure in the offing, to ensure salaries are in accordance with the capacity of the economy. Government plans to spend between 4-5 trillion shillings on salaries in the next financial year. Currently government is spending 3.5 trillion shillings on salary public servants.
