KCCA casual workers to be paid Wednesday

Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) leaders have revealed that wage arrears to all casual workers are to be paid on March 6.

During the Tuesday meeting between the Speaker of Parliament, Ms Anita Among and KCCA leaders led by Minister For Kampala Capital City & Metropolitan Affairs, Ms Minsa Kabanda, it was resolved that payment of arrears for all casual workers be made Wednesday without fail.

Other leaders who attended the meeting include; KCCA executive director, Ms Dorothy Kisaka, her deputy, Mr David Luyimbazi and the Lord Mayor, Erias Lukwago among others.

The casual workers with over four months pending payments include street sweepers and drainage cleaners who are currently employed by KCCA through their Saccos; community Sacco and Seven Hills.

“I request that we address these issues both through short and medium terms. First, let us have these people paid; it looks ugly when we have these people on the streets. Secondly, let all these have contracts as per the directive of the President,” Ms Among said.

Ms Kisaka informed the speaker that after the meeting between KCCA and Ministry Of Finance officials, it was agreed that the Authority use the available funds to pay the arrears by Wednesday.

“All arrears to these [casual] workers are going to be made tomorrow [Wednesday] through their Saccos. However, there will be no more payments done in this regard until the verification process is concluded successfully,” she said.

She added: “We shall have a comprehensive verification exercise for the payroll at the division level from March 11 to 12, 2024.”

Last week, hundreds of casual workers stormed Parliament in protest against delayed salaries, threats to terminate their contracts and alleged forceful conscription into Seven Hills Sacco by the Authority.

During the Tuesday meeting, the Lord Mayor, Lukwago called for action against what he termed as ‘unjust’ award of contracts to Seven Hills.

“There are 20 contract lots; unfortunately Seven Hill was awarded with 15 lots leaving the rest of the Saccos to share only five lots. We are also worried that the verification exercise is coming at a time when Seven Hills claims to have contracts, our prayer is that members in the other Saccos are given temporary contracts so that they can also have bargaining power for justice and equity,” he said.

Subsequently, Ms Among directed that all the current casual workers must be incorporated into the system and be given contracts.

“The President was clear; no one must be left behind. Therefore, all these people are equal, there is no supremacy and they should all have contracts through their Saccos,” she said.

“Secondly, I don’t think it is right to force a person to join what he or she does not want. If these people prefer not to join the other people [Seven Hills] let them be. If you have two Saccos, divide Kampala and allocate one part to seven hills and then other Saccos also work on the other areas,” she added.

Verification arrangements for casual workers on Monday (yesterday) were in vain on allegations that all members were being forced to register into Seven Hills, something they declined.

Expenditure

Speaker Among asked KCCA to budget for the payment of casual workers under a recurring budget, not the development budget which at several times is not prioritized during the budget release process.

“You have been budgeting as development expenditure whereas it is supposed to be current expenditure. So, in this budget that we are going into, we should change from development to current expenditure, release delays are always on development expenditures,” Ms Among said.