Why Ugandan public servants want to be forever young

Now in Uganda the in-thing is of some public servants trying to revise their age downwards to delay retirement. For some, the thought of soon hitting the mandatory age of 60 years has become a real nightmare.
But why? The Ugandan civil service is a huge intriguing story. Because the Ugandan government as an entity makes the largest expenditure in this economy, it is a very important player in all our lives. Interestingly, it is not a great payer in as far as salaries and wages are concerned.
Top civil servants may have a take home of Shs2 to 3 million a month, while a person of similar qualifications in the private sector is earning Shs5 million. Yet given an opportunity to serve, the smart ones will join the ‘poor paying’ civil service. Here the irony plays out. Many public servants end up amassing more wealth than their counterparts in the private sector.

They have farms, schools, hotels, hostels and apartments from their ‘meager salaries’ and their children study in the top schools in Uganda or abroad. Most of them claim they are being patriotic and sacrificing for the good of the country.
The truth is that the public service has so many opportunities. The first category is the allowances and entitlements that come with the job. Medicare and travel allowances are some of them. The second lot are those created by scarcity and the mystery that comes with services provided solely by the government.

Take the case of a land registration matter. It may require a signature by the proper officer who is never in the office to sign your papers. The intermediaries who may include his secretary and office messenger will then tell you that it will take about a month to see him because he is busy with a special assignment.
Then they will weave a maze by telling you that the papers have to go to the district, then to Entebbe, then to the Ministry and back to URA for stamp duty because not many people are conversant with procedure. To cut the long story short, they ask for a bribe to give the boss and speed up things. Because you have no alternative you give in. Imagine this happening to 200 people in a year giving ‘only’ Shs1 million, the messenger and his boss will earn a small salary but take home huge amounts in bribes.
This scenario plays out in all sorts of things where the input of the government is required from procurement, making payments for supplies, etc.

Secondly, the public service offers opportunities that help a smart public servant to quietly steal from the taxpayer. There are many public servants whose businesses are subsidised by the taxpayer. You don’t have to be in the office full time like a counterpart in the private sector who clocks in and out. It gives you time to do your private work as well. You may use government cars to pick and drop your children from school unlike the rest of us. For some, there is police protection at home and on the road, clearing the way to beat the gridlock.
One may build houses (ab)using a government vehicle to ferry his building materials. He may use the same to ferry the chicken feed for his poultry farm and thus save money that would have entered his books as a cost. One famously used a government water bowser intended for road construction to water his animal farm before he retired and sold the farm due to the high cost of water.

In fact, there are not many public servants who know the price of fuel or car tyres let alone the cost of servicing a huge four wheel drive vehicle. It is all taken care of by the taxpayer. Many of these have retired with a boarded off four wheel guzzler only to sell it because of the high maintenance cost.
His placement also brings him several favours and friends. For instance, if you are a permanent secretary in a sensitive ministry that provides lucrative contracts to businesses, proprietors of those businesses will strive to keep you happy at every opportunity. I remember a public servant who lost his dear mother.
Businessmen fell over each other to comfort him so that he would obviously remember them when considering their supply contracts. He collected more money than he would have earned in 30 years of honest service.

Now if you are out of the position of influence simply because you have attained the mandatory retirement age, you may no longer afford to take your family for Christmas holiday in South Africa because the businessmen who used to pamper you no longer see business value in you. Your children may have to revert to normal schools because you no longer earn the ‘side money’ from people who want you to sign their papers because you are no longer a signatory.
Retirement puts an end to all these opportunities for earning huge amounts of money by simply being a public servant. For many dread the fact that in the private sector, you will not have this leg room to earn without sweating. They, therefore, try to make their days of service longer by making their lives shorter.
Nicholas Sengoba is a commentator on political and social issues. [email protected] Twitter: @nsengoba