President Yoweri Kaguta Tibuhaburwa Museveni’s cabinet has approved a plan for the enhancement of salaries for all civil servants after the new salary structure presented a lot of disparities among government employees with the same qualifications
Now, cabinet has approved an enhanced pay plan that is expected to be implemented in the next or 2023-2024 Financial Year.
This means that no salary increments will be made this financial year (FY2022-2023) through means such as supplementary budgets.
Grace Mugasa, the State Minister for Public Service, told Members of Parliament on the Committee on Education and Sports on Tuesday, September 06, 2022, that government was not deliberate about creating salary disparities such as between the arts and science teachers, but was rather limited by a low budgetary allocations, meaning that science teachers had to be prioritized.
“We do not intend to create disparities. If we had the resources to pay, we would have paid everybody the same amount of money,” said Minister Mugasa, trumpeting the government’s long held position on salary increment.
But now, such government employees who were left behind in this financial year during which government gave scientists, including science teachers, juicy salary increments, will be remembered in the next financial year, according to Mugasa.
For the arts teachers, particularly, the minister told the committee that the Ministry of Public Service approved the structures for the Ministry of Education and Sports. Whether the arts teachers have their salaries enhanced sooner or later will be determined by how much money Parliament allocates to the ministry for its wage bill.
Minister Mugasa also revealed that while Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government hand in their wage bill analyses for recruitment and enhancement of salaries to the Ministry of Public Service, the implementation of such is dependent on the availability of funds.
The minister emphasized: “Every year, MDAs and Local Governments submit their wage bill analysis. You can have a wish but if Ministry of Finance does not give you the money, you cannot recruit all the positions you intend to.”
In case all the needed funds are not available at the same time, Minister Mugasa noted, salary enhancement and recruitment of staff will continue to be conducted “in a phased manner.”
It should be remembered that the Public Service Ministry released the new salary structure for the 2022-2023 financial year, showing how much each government employee will be earning every month. (See New Salary Structure HERE).
But this new salary structure was rejected by secondary school head teachers and their deputies who were ready to resign due to the salary disparities that meant that science teachers would be earning more than head teachers. (Read Story Here).
Meanwhile, top ranking UPDF officers and prosecutors got juicy salary increments even when they were not scientists. (Read Stories Here and There).
Museveni recently declared that the time had come for all UPDF soldiers to have their salaries increased.
