By Andrew Irumba
Kampala: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has raised a red flag over the shs508 billion accrued by the Ministry of Defence and Veteran Affairs in pension arrears.
According to the Auditor General’s report for the
year ended June 2018, the pension arrears are part of shs654.1 billion of
domestic arrears that the Ministry is yet to clear.
The pension arrears, according to the report, are
meant to cater for 79,084 veterans, survivors and an ex-gratia category of
former soldiers.
The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Defence,
Edith Buturo, attributed the arrears to a 10 year verification programme that
aimed at establishing actual pension beneficiaries.
“There was a total of 140,000 pensioners by 2010 but we reduced that number to
79,084 through verification as well as payments because we did not have a
specific budget for pension arrears,” said Buturo.
MPs noted that many pensioners from the Uganda
People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) had not received their payment adding that they
always engaged their Parliamentary representatives to follow up the payments.
“The money you are spending in verifying is too much and this must come
to an end. Some banks have closed accounts of pensioners because you delayed to
pay,” said Hon. Joseph Ssewungu (DP, Kalungu West)
Hon. Tonny Ayoo (NRM, Kwania County) asked whether
ex-servicemen from colonial times to date would also benefit from the payments.
“I want to know if these ex-servicemen are part of the group that is supposed
to benefit from this money which is not budgeted for. We need to deal with the
complaints of pension accounts not being credited,” said Ayoo. (radiomusical.com)
Buturo told MPs that delay in clearing the pension
arrears caused the money owed to increase, adding that some fraudulent cases
had been registered where wrong claimants had been paid thus the
re-verification process.
She explained that the re-verification process
involves availing signatures or thumbprints of the rightful claimants before
payments are made.
“We were also flocked by the children and grandchildren of the World War
veterans who had unresolved disputes. We decided to limit one-off payments to
the living veterans who fall under the ex-gratia category,” Buturo added.
The Committee Chairperson, Hon. Nathan
Nandala-Mafabi, gave the ministry officials two weeks within which to present a
consolidated report on the matter.
“The Committee would rather cut other budgets to give money for pensioners so
that they start earning a normal pension,” Nandala-Mafabi said.
