The Committee on East African Community Affairs is pushing for a seven per cent annual interest when paying termination benefits to the former East African Community (EAC) employees.
The committee’s position is premised on the fact that most of the former EAC workers have pushed for their pay since the 1980s with some dying without accessing their benefits.
“We need to recognise this in the East African Mediation Agreement Bill, 2024 that for 48 years the majority have not been fully paid their terminal benefits. We cannot say we are going to pay them the same amount that was due to them in 1980s; actually this is a domestic debt for government and a debt has to attract interest,” said Hon. Samuel Opio (Indep., Kole North County).
Opio observed that the EAC Mediation Agreement of 1984 which guides the remuneration of EAC employees did not provide for interest of employees saying it did not envisage such a protracted period of payment as is the case for Uganda.
Opio made his submission during the meeting of the committee with the Minister of State for East African Community Affairs, Hon. James Ikuya and Minister of Public Service, Hon. Wilson Muruli Mukasa on Tuesday, 04 February 2025. Former staff of the EAC also attended the meeting.
The meeting was aimed at processing the East African Community Mediation Agreement Bill, 2024 which seeks to domesticate and implement the Community’s Mediation Agreement of 1984.
The agreement provides for remuneration of EAC staff, their immunities and privileges among others.
Luuka North County MP, Hon. Luke Inyensiko said there has been unwillingness on the side of government to settle the disgruntled former EAC employees over the years when compared with other civil servants that have been paid.
“People who have been working with Uganda National Roads Authority which was closed last year have started receiving their termination payments; let us not take another 10 years without paying the senior citizens. I propose that we come up with workable solutions in this bill,” said Inyensiko.
Ikuya observed that although the ministry is committed to the plight of former EAC staff, they are challenged by some who do not have requisite employment records.
“We have some claimants with missing files; the auditors are saying we cannot pay because we do not have what to base on,” Ikuya said adding that, ‘once the law is passed, the minister should be given sufficient power to deal with this problem, because there will be enough consultations within the service including former EAC staff who are alive, the technical groups and the EAC secretariat to affirm some things’.
Minister Muruli Mukasa on his part informed the committee that following the enactment of the EAC Mediation Agreement, Uganda amended the Pension Act to recognise service in EAC as pensionable.
He pledged the ministry’s support once the bill is passed into law, saying the financial liability to the Consolidated Fund is affordable.
For the claimants without the requisite documents, Muruli Mukasa said the ministry will support the validation exercise saying, “it is not difficult to prove that someone worked with EAC. We can always use those who are alive to affirm for those who died and we can as well go to the secretariat in Tanzania,” he added.
