MPs want pension before retirement

Seeking amendments. Pian County MP Remigio Achia before the floor of Parliament yesterday. photo BY PARLIAMENT

Members of Parliament yesterday granted leave to Pian County MP Remigio Achia to introduce a Private Member’s Bill seeking to amend the Parliamentary Pensions Act, 2007 so that they can access part of their savings while still serving.
Mr Achia said if the Act is amended, it will provide for other principal signatories to the scheme accounts besides the Clerk to Parliament and insert a new section to exclude death benefits of members and pensioners from the application of the succession law.
Mr Achia also said the Act also locks out MPs who leave Parliament after one term from getting the 30 per cent contribution by government but instead get entitled to their monthly savings of 5 per cent.
Seconding the motion, Mr Ronald Kaginda (Rukungiri Municipality) said as board of trustees to the Parliamentary Pensions Scheme, they have suffered a conflict between the Succession and Trustship laws while processing pension payments.
“Pension should not be part of Succession law but it should only be of the Trustship law. There is also the former MPs have been facing a challenge with accessing the medical board which does not sit regularly,” Mr Kaginda said.
Ms Betty Nambooze (Mukono Municipality) said MPs should not only consider themselves because they want to access the money for campaigns.
“Instead it should be very difficult for us to access it while still in service because former MPs live miserable lives because they spend all they earn. Commercialisation of politics has become a problem,” she said.
Mr Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda (Kira Municipality) described the proposal as “selfishness” by the MPs to access their pension when other workers have to wait until retirement to access it.
The MPs also want to remove a provision that mandates the Medical Board to approve any member’s application to seek treatment abroad and instead allow any certified health practitioner approved by the board to handle such recommendation.
“The process of obtaining a recommendation from the Uganda Medical Board is quite lengthy and cumbersome. This affects members or pensioners from easily accessing funds for medical treatment or retirement on medical grounds,” Mr Achia said.

Medical Board matter
However, the State Minister for Health, Ms Sarah Opendi, said the Medical Board does not frustrate the MPs and other Ugandans’ requests.
She said the board sits once every month but any member can approve the request for someone to seek treatment abroad as long as the condition cannot be handled in Uganda.
“It is not true that the Medical Board is inaccessible because it sits monthly. And in case of an emergency, a member can approve the request. The problem is that there is a lot of political pressure on the Board. That is why it is reluctant to approve some requests because they can be treated here,” Ms Opendi said.
The Bill will be seeking to amend Section 2 of the Act to substitute the Medical Board with a medical practitioner, among other changes.

amend Section 1 (b) by providing for other principal signatories who can authorise the release of money from the scheme in the absence of the Clerk to Parliament.

Scheme

The Parliamentary Pensions Scheme was introduced in 2007 to grant pension or retirement benefits to legislators and staff of Parliament, among other related matters.
The MPs were not accessing the money until a few years ago when they amended the law access the funds through acquiring loans.