East African Gazette
Investigation
The ex-workers of the defunct East African community [EAC] have demanded that a forensic audit be done to establish the cause of not being paid for their pension for the last 47 years.
The angry senior citizens led by Perry Antone Namugowa, a former tax collector told the East African Gazette in an exclusive interview that they are disappointed with the ministry of East African Community Affairs Permanent Secretary, Edith Mwanje for reportedly failing to pay them despite having been officially invited for their document verification exercise but payment of pension and other terminal benefits are still pending.
The members have cautioned the ministry to pay them without any further delay, if not they will write a petition to the president asking him to intervene by either compelling the ministry to pay them off or sack Mwanje whom they accuse of blocking their pay.
They contend that Mwanje with a small team of technical officers should be probed as to why they are not paying yet the funds are available.
‘That woman is major stumbling block in the ministry who is solely responsible for clandestinely refusing to pay us despite having tendered in all the necessary documents and we demand that the president sacks her with the entire pension technical team in the ministry and carry out a forensic audit of the ministry pension department to establish who are responsible for their suffering’ fumed the visibly dejected elders.
Namugowa pulled out a letter by Mwanje dated 29/03/2023 being in response to Nmugowa’s earlier letter dated 21/03/2023 demanding for payment of pension arrears in which Namugowa indicated that he has been waiting for his payment for the last 46 years which suggested that he had never been paid.
Mwanje responded by saying I wish to bring to your attention that available records in your file and the internal audit re verification report provide that you were paid all your arrears in three installments by the ministry of public service.
The reported installments covered 3,365,700, 11,425,600 and 11,944,246 totaling to 26,735,546/= it is therefore not true that you have never been paid for the last 46 years as claimed.
However, in conclusion, Mwanje noted that the purpose of this letter is to inform you that according to available records and audit reviews, it has been confirmed that you were paid the above amount as your benefits for the service you offered at the EAC and therefore you have no any other outstanding arrears to claim from this ministry.
Namugowa pulled out a copy of a letter dated 27 JULY 2023 which was in response to Mwanje’s letter dated 19 April 2023 in which Namugowa denied having received money as pension arrears and other terminal benefit arrears from the defunct EAC worth US$23, 491,79 as alleged by Mwanje and demanded that she avails him a copy detailing this payment respectively.
He instead revealed how he was able to retrieve a copy of a payment voucher dated 21 August 2001 from his personal confidential file as payment of the above amount of money in US Dollars of which he never received and is wondering what happened to that money.
He furthermore said the total figure she referred to of 26,735,546 as having been paid to him as EAC pension arrears is incorrect and to the contrary, that was his pension for latter employment with government and he has no claim against the government in that respect.
Take notice that if you don’t withdraw your letter Ref. EAC /P/1075 dated 29 March 2023 or arrange to pay me my pension and terminal benefits arrears within 30 days from date hereof. I have several actions to take against your illegal decision be it political, administrative, legal, or all because your decision is malicious, unjust and tantamount to denial of my rights noted Namugowa.
He said that notwithstanding, I attach what I honestly believe to be a correct computation of my entitlements as at 30/06/2023 which is US$ 176,091,73 which is the quantum of nonpayment for a period through 46 years which arises out of no fault of mine for sure and take note that what was paid to me had been deducted accordingly.
He copied the letter to the first deputy prime minister and minister for EAC affairs, minister of public service, state minister EAC affairs, the attorney general among other officials.
In another letter to Mwanje dated 19 April 2023 he reminded her that in December 2020, the auditor general [AG] reportedly came out with an audit report on the verification of pension arrears of the former employees of the defunct EAC in schedule 3 of gratuity calculations. Stating that Claimants with files traced to the intermenstrual report 2000 SN13.
In this report his name appeared with entitlement gratuity computation of US$ 14, 144, 88 It seems Mwanje has not only disowned but also conveniently avoided this report of the [AG] for reasons best known to herself.
For a reminder he recalled further that on or about the 26/04/2021 the EAC ministry put out a notice in the New Vision of that day requesting EAC pension/gratuity funds claimants named in the notice to report to the ministry head offices at kingdom Kampala building for verification and payment of their money and I was N0 121
However, when we reached out to the first deputy prime minister and minister for East African community affairs Dr. Rebecca Kadaga for comment on this matter, she confirmed that the ministry pension office has some challenges which need to be sorted out such that no elders should continue complaining about their pay.
The minister pointed out that she was able to make a presentation of the Former EAC pension status of her ministry on the floor of parliament last September 2023 and told the house how they managed to trace, verify, validate and pay a total of 423 pensioners in the recent financial years of 2019/20 and 2021/2022 respectively.
She observed that in the financial year 2022/23 much as 347 files had been verified and cleared for payment but only 163 claimants worth 1,990,659,884/= were physically traced and paid however that a total of 184 failed to present the required relevant information such as letters of administration obtained from competent courts of law, genuine estate bank accounts, tax identification numbers [TIN] to facilitate the creation of supplier numbers as by law established.
Kadaga further explained that in the financial year 2023/24, her ministry had so far verified an additional 31 files worth US$ 93,533,84 while another batch of 1,297 files have been retrieved and are being verified by the technical team for onward submission to the internal audit unit and upon conclusion of the audit exercise, a supplementary budget would be made to ask for funds from the ministry of finance planning and economic development to pay the claimants that would have been cleared.
However, when asked to comment about the claimants’ threats calling upon the president to sack her permanent secretary Edith Mwanje, the minister said the aggrieved stakeholders are free to take any action of their choice which can compel government to clear them in case it emerged that there were some anomalies leading to the delayed payments.
Sources within the ministry for EAC indicate that several elderly claimants who had been invited to come for verification of their pension payment process are sometimes rudely bounced by officials of the pension registry and as a result they end up in the office of the state minister for EAC James Magode Ikuya of whom they reportedly report the harassment and seek for support including offering them a transport refund back to upcountry districts like Soroti,Mbale and Gulu.
However, Magode told our reporter that it was true some desperate pension claimants from upcountry sometimes reach out to his office with complaints about suspected harassment from the pension office. When we approached Mwanje for comment over the allegations leveled against her, she quickly denied any wrongdoing saying she was not corrupt and that she has worked in that ministry for over 30 years with a good track record therefore anybody accusing her of any wrongdoing was just being unfair to her.
When pressed for her comment on the Perry Antone Namugowa case, she confirmed having attempted to have handled his matter saying she won’t make any further comment on the matter.
Leave a Reply