Warning: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool in /usr/www/users/urnnet/a/story.php on line 43 Bishop Wants Civil Servants Salary Scale Reviewed to End Recurrent Strikes :: Uganda Radionetwork
Bishop Katumba’s advice comes over a week after primary and Arts teachers in secondary schools laid down their tools demanding enhancements of their salaries. Besides the teachers, health professionals, lecturers, and nonteaching staff in public universities have also repeatedly gone on strike to demand a pay rise.
The Bishop of West Buganda
Anglican Diocese; The Rt Rev Henry Katumba Tamale, has called for a general salary scales review for all public
servants, as a decisive solution to the recurrent strikes.
He is concerned that repeated action by
different categories of civil servants is presenting grievous effects to the population that fails to access the much desired social services
every time government workers strike.
Bishop Katumba’s advice comes over a week after primary and Arts teachers in secondary schools laid down their tools demanding enhancements of their salaries.
Besides the teachers, health professionals, lecturers, and nonteaching staff in public
universities have also repeatedly gone on strike to demand a pay
rise.
Bishop Katumba says that the government needs to set up and
operationalize a Salaries Review Commission to harmonize payments of
all public servants, other than handling the problem in a piecemeal approach. According to him, the current salary structures
create serious wage inequalities which will haunt the country for decades.
//Cue in; “kyokka tulabye…
Cue out…ebigambo ebituufu.”//
Bishop Katumba advised that in the meantime, the government should avoid
being stiff-necked while handling teachers’ demands, but instead find ways of
courteously engaging them in the interest of the parents and students who
have become victims of circumstances.
//Cue in; “kubanga bino…
Cue out…bitekebwe mu nkola.”//
On Wednesday, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Public
Service Catherine Bitarakwate Musingwiire ordered the striking
teachers to return to their duty station by Friday, June 24, or risk being scrapped off the payroll. According to her
communication, the government does not have money to cater for salary
increments due to a limited budget.
But Herman Nsamba, the Headteacher at St Gregory Primary School
Butende in Masaka says many of the teachers in the area did not show up as
instructed on Friday, owing to the communication by their umbrella body of
Uganda National Teachers Union-UNATU which advised them to stay home.
Nsamba has also asked the officers in the line ministries to
avoid issuing coercive statements to teachers which may instead acerbate the
situation at hand.
