Various countries worldwide have decided to take a pay cut for public servants due to the need to raise funds and address the COVID-19 pandemic. In Uganda, it is the public that has been demanding for a pay cut of public servants especially from Cabinet Ministers and Members of Parliament.
While speaking during an interview today morning on NBS Morning Breeze show, Speaker of Parliament Rt. Hon. Rebecca Kadaga revealed that with the economy now on check needing serious government intervention, they are willing to discuss the motion of pay cuts.
“If they bring a motion to cut down on our salaries, we shall look at it,” Kadaga said.
Kadaga said though many are pointing fingers at MPs for not doing enough when it comes to taking care of poor people in this pandemic; she said several MPs have formally and informally taken responsibility to take care of some people.
“I have supplied water tanks within trading centres in Kamuli,” Kadaga revealed.
Kadaga seems not convinced with government’s decision of distributing food relief to only urban areas of Kampala and Wakiso.
“With this decision, they are undermining the population because they have no plans to distribute the food elsewhere apart from Kampala and Wakiso. I suspect they wanted to solve someone’s financial problem,” Kadaga said.
She added, “Every town in this country is affected because we have these jobs distracted across the country. The excuse they were giving was that the Kampala people have been affected by the lockdown. How about the taxi drivers in Jinja and Gulu?”
According to Kadaga, the lockdown has been a hard decision to make but it was implemented in the interest of safeguarding the country.