Uganda Law Society starts bereavement, health fund

The Uganda Law Society (ULS), a professional body for lawyers, has launched a fund to support its members and their families during times of death and health emergencies.

Each ULS member is now expected to contribute Shs100,000 annually towards the Uganda Law Society Healthcare and Benevolent Fund.

Of this, Shs75, 000 will be a direct contribution to the fund by each member and Shs25,000 will be deducted from their annual membership contribution to ULS.

“Over the last seven months, I have attended at least 10 funeral services mourning and celebrating the lives of our members who passed onto eternity. What has consistently saddened me most is not just the loss of our members but also the helplessness of the children and dependants left behind,” Mr Bernard Oundo, the ULS president said on Friday in Kampala during the launch.

“In most of these cases, our members have been the breadwinners and with their passing, there is no hope for the family in terms of daily sustenance and future education. Additionally, the family also struggles to cater for the expenses of the funeral,” he added.

Mr Oundo described the fund as a historic “milestone for our membership.”
 “For long, we have struggled with how to be able to deal with these challenges. The fund will be grown to provide more benefits to the membership,” he added.

Previously, ULS would contribute Shs500,000 towards the burial of a colleague, but with the launch of new fund,  the deceased’s family will be given Shs3m and another Shs1m as contribution towards school fees for at least two children.

According to ULS statistics, if all the members contribute, the fund will have about Shs400m in one year.

Mr Simon Peter Kinobe, a former ULS president, welcomed the establishment of the fund, saying gone are the days of running around to beg from people when a member gets a health emergency or death.

“One of the biggest problems that the ULS has been grappling with is the absence of planning for its membership for unforeseen eventualities such as sickness and death. So with the establishment of the fund, which is some kind of insurance, when a member dies or gets seriously sick, there won’t be running around to beg,” Mr Kinobe said in a telephone interview yesterday.

Prior to the establishment of the fund, a team of three lawyers; Lydia Proscovia Ochieng-Obbo, Phillip Munaabi and Barbra Kitui travelled to Kenya for benchmarking with the Kenya Law Society.

Their findings showed that the Kenya Law Society had as of December 2022 had spent Ksh16m (about Uganda Shs430m) on the education of 203 children of their departed colleagues.