A year not too far off, private teachers in the country are yet to get the sh20b COVID-19 alleviation cash guaranteed by President Yoweri Museveni.
Information to Kaaro Karungi shows that the finance ministry is yet to release the cash because of the shortfall of modalities for its payment to the educators by the education ministry.
The Finance ministry acting permanent secretary (PS), Patrick Ocailap, has since clarified that albeit the cash is accessible, it has not been released because of the shortfall of an institutional structure by the education ministry.“That money has never been given out. We are still waiting for the education ministry to set up those structures. Let them first get organised, then we shall get the money and give it to them,” Ocailap said in an interview on Monday.
In July last year, President Museveni promised sh20b to help teachers in private schools who were affected by the closure of schools. The money should be directed through their particular Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies (SACCOS).
Of the 548,192 affected Teachers, 75,560 are in tuition based schools around the country. Most of these private schools stopped paying teachers after the first month of the lockdown in April last year.
This was after President Museveni, in March last year, requested the immediate closure, all things considered, and instructive foundations to check the spread of the Covid.
Most teachers in private schools get less than sh500,000 ($136.3), with the exception of a few private schools in the country. Teachers in some private schools get salaries as low as sh100,000 ($27.2) per month, yet the lowest paid teacher on the government payroll in a primary school starts at about sh400,000 ($109). In secondary, the lowest paid teacher gets about sh700,000 ($218).
It is only teachers in Government aided schools who have been receiving salaries.
Recently, former education ministry PS, Alex Kakooza, was quoted to have said the money was returned to the Microfinance Support Centre until the teachers come up with a legal structure where the money will be channelled.
But Microfinance Support Centre executive director Peter Mujuni says they have never received the funds.
“Let me be very clear. We do not have that money and the ministry has never sent us it to us. That statement attributed to the PS has created a lot of confusion and you know such a thing happens when people are desperate.
The teachers are now looking for me because the PS said it was sent back to MSC, which is not true.
“That money was not released to us. I remember the PS was following up with the finance ministry to give that money,” Mujuni said.
He said he last heard about the private teachers’ money when the former finance ministry PS, Keith Muhakanizi, asked him whether he could find money from other sources, such as Emyooga.
“I could not touch the Emyooga funds because it was clearly defined by Parliament for a certain category of people. So, you cannot go to the Emyooga fund, which is supposed to give out sh30b to a SACCOS and get sh20b and give it to one group of people, who are even not among the categories,” Mujuni said.
When New Vision contacted Kakooza about the money, he declined to talk about it, saying he had already left the ministry.
“I left that ministry and it will look very bad for me to speak, yet it has a PS. Talk to those people in the ministry,” he said.
However, the education ministry’s assistant commissioner for information and communication management, Patrick Muyinda, confirmed that the education ministry has not received the funds.
However, he clarified that the ministry has completed the formation of structures and that they are in the process of legalising them.
“The structures for the private school funds were completed. Unfortunately, the process was slowed down by COVID and the lockdown. Right now the structures are being formally legalised. The finance ministry has assured us that the money is there and that it is safe,” Muyinda said.
Juma Mwamula, the general secretary of Uganda Private Teachers’ Union, said apart from being informed that the money was transferred from the education ministry to Microfinance Support Centre, the modalities have not been worked out.
When asked whether he had ever seen any documents pertaining its existence in the ministry, he said, “it is probable that it is not there”.
Mwamula said the union will communicate its position on the money later this week.
