Pallisa Registers Retired Civil Servants

By Jonathan Angura PALLISA district is registering and verifying retired civil servants to ascertain their demands in salary arrears and gratuity. The district chairman, Dr. Laban Kirya, said the exercise is aimed at streamlining the claim process. He said the district owes retired civil servants and those still in service a total of sh554m in retirement benefits and salary arrears. "This is a comprehensive exercise in which we want to get an up to date number of those demanding from us so that we alert government," Kirya said. He said many people had frequented the district offices claiming for payment yet some of them had no genuine claims and that some of the people also lacked documentary evidence like appointment and retirement letters. Kirya said some of the arrears that previously amounted to sh900m had accrued from Tororo district when the two districts (Pallisa and Tororo) were still one. Pallisa got autonomy from Tororo in 1991. Some retired parish and sub-county chiefs from Kibuku, recently told The New Vision that the district had paid claimants from other areas and segregated against them. The Kibuku claimants said they had retirement letters dated 1994. They said each of them was demanding about sh500,000. They expressed fears that since they had grown old, they could die without getting their money. Most of them were aged between 65 and 80 years. Ends