60,000 to wait much longer for pension cash

 

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In Summary

Pensioners to miss pay this month

Thousands of pensioners will miss pay effective this month after the Ministry of Finance asked its counterpart, Public Service, to stay their payment until an audit of all the files is complete.

The Secretary to the Treasury, Mr Chris Kassami, on April 10 wrote to Public Service acting permanent secretary Adah K. Muwanga, requesting her to stay the payment of pension and gratuity arrears until the audit exercise by the latter is completed.

“You are advised to stay the payment of pension and gratuity arrears until the audit exercise is completed. Whereas you have indicated that the audit is in advanced stages, it was agreed that until the forensic audit is complete, there will be no provision and payment of pension and gratuity arrears,” reads Mr Kassami’s letter.



“It is therefore imperative that you provide that actual progress of the audit exercise and indicate when it will be completed and the report submitted.”

He also informed the PS of government’s decision to migrate the pension payroll to the Integrated Personnel and Payroll system (IPPS) by the end of June. “I hope this process is on schedule and will be completed on time in order to address the challenges experienced in the processing of pension payments,” Mr Kassami said.

On March 21, Public Service wrote to Finance requesting them to authorise them to utilise Shs48 billion to pay outstanding gratuity and pension arrears and release Shs51 billion for payment of pending claims of gratuity and pension arrears.

The requests
Finance demanded that Public Service submits details of pension and gratuity payments against the budget provisions for this financial year by expenditure line category. Some of the people affected include the general civil service, military, teachers, local government, former political leaders and UPDF widows.

 

Mr Jonas Tumwine, the Public Service principal communication officer, yesterday acknowledged receipt of the Finance letter but added that his ministry did not have control over the auditors since they were coming from Finance.

He said the ministry was requesting Finance to allow them pay those individuals whose files had been cleared.




“To avoid accumulation of arrears and outcry from pensioners, Finance should allow Public Service to pay audited files in a phased manner. After all, the auditors are from Finance not ours,” he told the Daily Monitor in an interview.

 

 

 

According to Mr Tumwine, all the files for pension arrears for May to October 2012 were locked up in the pension accounts offices by the Criminal Intelligence Investigation Department between October last year to February. “Out of the over 5,000 files that were locked up, the audit team has so far looked at about 2,000 totaling to about Shs18 billion,” Mr Tumwine explained