Last week, the Chairman of the National COVID-19 Fundraising committee Eng. Emmanuel Katongole said that the committee is targeting a collection of Shs21 billion to help in the fight against the pandemic, and they would like every Ugandan to donate Shs10,000 to the cause.
Yesterday, a letter dated May 12, 2020 surfaced where Katongole wrote to all Chief Executives of private organizations and companies requesting them to join and mobilise for COVID-19 funds by deducting Shs10,000 from every salary earner for the month of May to go towards the fight.
“As good corporate citizens, we would like to request each Chief Executive to extend our appeal to your employees to dedicate part of their May payroll and donate at least Shs10000 each to support the cause,” read part of the letter.
Knowing this, Ugandans have since taken to social media to express their disgust with the proposal, and the committee at large for trying to “steal more” from Ugandans during such trying economic times.
The majority of Uganda say the lack of accountability from the committee for the donations it has received so far has made them doubtful of its intentions, for most of them have not even seen where the jerrycans from Coca Cola went to.
This is in addition to the fact that most of them have not even received government relief food that was promised at the onset of the lockdown in March.
Hashtags like #KeepingMy10K and #MujoogaBasajjaMwe are trending on Twitter where Ugandans are expressing their dissatisfaction with this move.
With Ugandans having been under lockdown for close to 60 days, many of them are out of their jobs, and those that have them have had their salaries cut as their bosses try to survive through the pandemic.
This ideally means they have limited resources in terms of money to work with; prices of some products have increased, and have families to take care of.
“My salary, I pay 5% of government taxes, NSSF, insurance, and others, now why do you need the 10k really?” one user, Mtoto wa Africa wondered.
Another one tweeted, “You shared the Shs20 million, we kept quiet. You shared the Shs40 million, still we are quiet, busy suffering in our houses. And now you want our own money. Heheheh. Njakuba omuntu ejinja mukiwalata #keepingMy10k #Return40m #MujoogaBasajjamwe,”