{"id":1171,"date":"2020-05-14T19:46:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-14T19:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ugandaupdatenews.com\/?p=1171"},"modified":"2020-05-16T15:34:09","modified_gmt":"2020-05-16T15:34:09","slug":"can-mps-discuss-stimulus-instead-of-nssf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/can-mps-discuss-stimulus-instead-of-nssf\/","title":{"rendered":"Can’t MPs fight for all workers besides NSSF?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Special Correspondent <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Workers\u2019 MP Sam Lyomoki has issued a passionately combative statement in support of paying 20% of NSSF savings to savers who have attained the age of 45 years, and also calling on members to be \u2018vigilant\u2019 as parliament debates the amendment of the Fund\u2019s Act which is before the House. Different observers have also weighed in on the subject. But it is Lyomoki\u2019s statement that I find quite revealing about Uganda\u2019s economy and political representation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Less than 1% of the workers<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quoting an audit report, Dr Lyomoki explains that NSSF savers who would benefit from the 20% payout proposal are only 150,000 \u2013 just a small fraction of the NSSF membership of 1.5million. Looking at Uganda\u2019s workforce which is estimated at 19 million people, the 150,000 become an even tinier fraction, less than one percent of the workforce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether one supports or opposes the proposed 20% NSSF payout becomes a peripheral issue in this perspective. It is indeed pathetic that in a crisis that has seen millions of workers failing to work, Parliament can be asked to look at the savings of less than one percent of the workers as an important measure to solve the predicament of 19 million workers. Posho and beans for Kampala\u2019s downtrodden we have heard, but I am not aware of what financial solution the parliament is proposing for the workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other are paying everybody<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Could it be because the grounding of airplanes and closure of borders worldwide has made the popular bench-marking trips overseas impossible, that Ugandan MPs have missed hearing about the stimulus packages in other countries? Very quickly, let us bring ourselves up to speed with a couple of them. In the US, every adult was entitled to $1,200 (sh4.5million) and $500 for kids. In Britain, while the civil servants are getting their salaries without working, the self-employed are to get 2,500 pounds (sh12.5million) per month of lockdown. Of course, every country should pay according to its ability. So can parliament discuss Uganda\u2019s ability to help workers who are not working instead of being obsessed with dismantling the savings of an unlucky less than 1 percent of the workers?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And this is not to say that there are no Ugandans who have suggested this. It is in fact just another revelation about Uganda\u2019s economy and political representation \u2013 the disconnect between academia and policymakers. For MUBS\u2019 Professor Wasswa Balunywa went on record and suggested that the government puts (a one-off) free fuel in every boda boda\u2019s tank as stimulus and also give something like 100k to every small scale enterprise. This he said at the PSFU e-conference that was \u2018attended\u2019 by 15 million Ugandans. So while we commend the MPs for being so concerned about the 150,000 NSSF contributors aged 45-55, it would be noble for them to seek financial relief for all the 19 million workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is nothing wrong for the government paying out cash to the 19 million workers. It is already paying full salary to about half a million workers of its own when they are not working. It is about 150,000 of the government\u2019s workforce who are on duty. But the 400,000 \u2013 450,000 others who are not working are being paid. The private sector workers including the self-employed are not sitting at home out of their wish, they are grounded by the lockdown. The people who got maize and beans in from the government are less than a million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to pay all workers<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parliament should be consulting experts on how best every Ugandan worker should be given a cash relief, more urgently than how to pay out a 45-year old\u2019s 20% savings and deprive them of all the compound interest they would be earning over the next ten years from it! Uganda\u2019s government is not rich enough to pay a million shillings per worker. But it can pay 100k for example. This is better than zero for someone who is not earning, being worth 50kgs of maize flour for instance. That would work out to two trillion shillings, about the total of supplemantaries in a year which the speaker indicated are questionable and invited the public to question them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If two trillion was paid to the workers, at least it would be known where it has gone and the speaker need not be worried. And let nobody suggest that there is no way of identifying the recipients, unless they want to argue the elaborate, expensive databases in NIRA, NITA, UCC are a sham. If some recipients spend their 100k in one day, that will be good for the entrepreneurs around them who would receive the money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is it reckless to pay all workers a stimulus when they are out of work in lockdown? It is only moral. After all, it is their taxes which they pay when they are working that pay the half a million government workers who are not even working now. If the government is looking around for the money to pay the grounded private sector\/self-employed workers, one of the logical sources would be cutting from the public sector workers\u2019 salaries by half or three quarters, so that those who pay the government staff salaries can also get something. Isn\u2019t it just fair? Those are the things that MPs should be discussing, rather than dismantling a few people\u2019s savings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Special Correspondent Workers\u2019 MP Sam Lyomoki has issued a passionately combative statement in support of paying 20% of NSSF savings<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[65],"tags":[110,120],"class_list":["post-1171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news","tag-nssf","tag-parliament"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/ELZfxb3X0AAwvV-.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8437,"url":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/parliament-adopts-nssf-committee-report-calls-for-minister-amongi-resignation-for-soliciting-ug-shs-6bn-workers-money\/","url_meta":{"origin":1171,"position":0},"title":"Parliament adopts NSSF committee report calls for Minister Amongi resignation for soliciting ug.shs.6bn workers money","author":"UgandaUpdate","date":"March 11, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Members of Parliament chaired by Speaker Anita Among have adopted recommendations by the select committee that investigated mismanagement and corruption at the Ug.Shs.18 trillion NSSF and called for the resignation of Gender Minister Betty Amongi for abuse of office. 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