Ex-workers of defunct UEB sue liquidator

Former employees of the defunct Uganda Electricity Board (UEB) have sued the Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB) seeking terminal benefits.

URSB is the official liquidator of UEB, which is still in liquidation according to court documents.

A total of 1,117 former workers of UEB are seeking recovery of their reparation allowance, damages and legal costs incurred and interest therein.

The case that was re-filed on Monday under the new electronic arrangement awaits allocation to a judge and be fixed for hearing before the High Court.  

 The court documents show that the former employees were laid off following the government’s restructuring of parastatals between 1998 and 2001.  

UEB was unbundled and ceased to exist in 2006 to create three new entities, namely the Uganda Electricity Generation Company, Uganda Electricity Transmission Company, and Uganda Electricity Distribution Company, with Electricity Regulatory Authority to oversee them

 The former workers of UEB, through their lawyers, Okurut and Company Advocates, claim that upon termination of their services, they were to be paid terminal benefits together with a transport allowance of Shs600,000 for junior staff and Shs1,000,000 for senior staff.

Led by one Julius Silver Onyait, the complainants allege that at the time of termination, they were promised the money would be deposited on their account together with their terminal benefits within four weeks.

“However, the plaintiffs were surprised to receive their terminal benefits without payment of their transport allowance, which was contrary to the communication and promises they had earlier on received,” reads the court document.

 It is alleged that the claimants only discovered in 2016 that the liquidator had actually not paid them their transport allowance, which money was given to them by the government but their efforts through their advocates to claim the money was not honoured.

“The plaintiffs have tried but in vain to demand payment of their transport allowance since then to date, but the liquidator, who took over in 2006, has continued to deny them the payment.’’

But the official liquidator of (UEB) denies any wrongdoing saying it shall raise a preliminary objection that the complainants are by law prohibited from bringing a fresh case in respect of the same facts which were previously dismissed.

Background

The case comes after the High Court in 2016 dismissed with costs the case in which Onyait on behalf of 877 others sued the official liquidator of UEB together with lawyer Peter Kimanje Nsibambi. Justice Musa Ssekaana of the Civil Division of the High Court dismissed the case.