Speaker of Parliament, Anita Among, has resolved the year-long payment issues of the Kampala Capital City Authority’s (KCCA) casual laborers.
During a meeting with KCCA leaders, including Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago, Speaker Among announced that payments would be disbursed to the sweepers’ Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies (SACCOs) on Wednesday, March 06, 2024.
“Payment will be made tomorrow, not commencing tomorrow; let’s ensure these individuals are compensated. It’s disheartening to witness their suffering; they are our mothers, wives, and sisters. Seeing them distressed and in pain is unacceptable,” she emphasized during the gathering held on Tuesday, 05 March 2024, at Parliament House.
The street sweepers, organized in SACCOs, have endured four months without compensation, leading to their peaceful demonstration in front of Parliament last Thursday.
Following her address to the protesting sweepers at Parliament’s entrance, Speaker Among convened a meeting on Monday, March 04, 2024, with KCCA Executive Director, Dorothy Kisaka, and Ramathan Ggoobi, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, Planning, and Economic Development/Secretary to Treasury. This meeting resolved to clear the outstanding payments.
In today’s session, Speaker Among advised Ms. Kisaka to categorize the sweeper payments under the entity’s recurrent expenditure instead of development expenditure, as currently done, to facilitate timely disbursements and avoid similar delays.
“The delay is attributed to categorizing it as development expenditure; in the upcoming financial year, it must be classified under recurrent expenditure,” she explained.
Minister for Kampala Capital City and Metropolitan Affairs, Hon. Minsa Kabanda, expressed relief at the resolution, stating, “We have been grappling with this issue for over a year, and we are grateful that you have assisted us in finally resolving this matter.”
Kisaka assured that payments would be processed on Wednesday, March 06, 2024.
Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago highlighted challenges stemming from efforts to phase out casual laborers under SACCOs in favor of a single company. He suggested zoning Kampala to accommodate the interests of both cleaners under their SACCOs and the contracted sanitation company.
“It was evident that we needed to divide Kampala into clusters, aligned with the 10 constituencies, so that SACCOs could oversee some areas while Seven Hills [the company] managed others. However, there seems to be a systematic attempt to eliminate the old SACCOs,” he remarked.
