Minimum Wage Bill can still become law without President’s assent

In President Museveni’s New Year’s message, he told workers to forget about demanding the minimum higher salaries, which is regrettable but reignites the debate over the minimum wage bill.

Currently, Uganda’s minimum wage, last set in 1984 during the Obote II government, is 6,000 Uganda shillings (US$ 2.5).

This figure is dwarfed by the minimum wage rates of some of its East African neighbours, which vary depending on the sector or nature of the job. Kenya’s ranges from KSh. 8,109.90 (US$ 57.27) per month up to KSh. 34,302 (US$ 242.24) per month, and Tanzania’s is between TSh. 40,000 (US$ 16) and TSh. 400,000 (US$ 163.60) per month.

In February 2019, Parliament, under the stewardship of the then-Speaker, Rebecca Kadaga, passed the Minimum Wage Bill, 2015, to set up a minimum wage determination mechanism, curb employee exploitation, and repeal the 67-year-old colonial law, the Minimum Wages Board and Wages Council Act, Cap. 22. On August 21, 2019, the President wrote to the Speaker, informing her of his decision not to assent to the bill, claiming that there were no gaps and that the existing law was adequate and enforceable.

Ironically, in 1995, the minimum wage for unskilled labour was recommended to be 75,000 shillings, which the cabinet reviewed to 65, 000 shillings under the existing law but has never been implemented. Similarly, recommendations on a minimum wage by the Minimum Wages Advisory Board set up in 2015 are also gathering dust.

However, the president’s decline to assent to the bill or whether there are prospects for him to reconsider it is immaterial. He squandered the opportunity to do so within the thirty-day period prescribed by the Constitution.

To put it into context, when Parliament passes a bill and it is presented to the President to exercise his constitutional mandate, he is restricted to only one of the three options under Article 91(3) of the Constitution of the Republic of Uganda: first, assenting it into law; second, returning it to Parliament with the request that the bill or particular provision of it be reconsidered; or third, notifying the Speaker in writing that he or she refuses to assent to the bill.

By the time the President wrote to the then-Speaker, communicating his refusal to assent to the bill, water had passed under the bridge. His communication was inconsequential in the eyes of the law. He had failed to exercise his power within30 days.

The Constitution presumes that a bill is assented to and only waits like a piece of cake for the Speaker to finalize the law-making process if the President fails to do any of the three within the thirty-day period.

When the President failed to write within thirty days, the fate of workers lay in the hands of the Speaker. She was required by Article 91(7) of the Constitution, read together with Section 9(3) of the Acts of Parliament Act, Cap. 2, to cause a copy of the Minimum Wage Bill to be laid before Parliament to become law. This path was not explored.

Instead, she invoked Article 91(6) of the Constitution to raise the possibility of Parliament reconsidering the bill. This option has no factual basis since the refusal to assent, which would have triggered the application of Article 91(6), was not anchored in the law.

These provisions are not idle; the framers of the Constitution foresaw a likelihood of abuse of this presidential discretion. To check any excesses of the presidency in the law-making process, they restricted its participation in the final stages of this process to a thirty-day period but also gave Parliament, through the Speaker, the right to assert the will of the people by causing a copy of the bill to be laid if the President foot-dragged the process as it is now with the Minimum Wage Bill.

It’s not yet over. The current Speaker has the simplest duty of exercising this constitutional command by causing the Minimum Wage Bill, 2015, to be laid before Parliament and become law.

Mr Simon Peter Esomu is a member of the International Lawyers Assisting Workers.