I went to my bank a few days ago as I usually do to go and draw my pension money which would have been paid to my account. To my surprise, the teller told me that Government had suspended the payment of pensions for former Government employees until further notice.
What is this? For some of us, this is the only means of income and therefore livelihood. Even a delay of payment of this money for one month has dire consequences on our sustenance. A former colleague of mine whom I met accidently told me a similar story. Furthermore he told me that he had gone to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning to cross check on the validity of the banks’ behaviour.
This gentleman told me that he was only able to see one officer who explained to me that as of now they want to deal only with the pension money of the former East African employees. Does this mean that only those Ugandans merit assistance from Government?
We all worked to the best of our ability for as long as 40 years, in some cases. And now we come to this. Whoever is responsible for this, be it the Minister of Finance or the Minister of Public Service or the Permanent Secretary should come forward to explain this situation and allay the fears of us suffering former Civil Servants.
