Movt Secretariat closure is smooth
Jan 19, 2006
WE have gone over the bumpy path of the first way to winding down the organs of the Movement political system and in particular the Movement Secretariat.
By Crispus Kiyonga
WE have gone over the bumpy path of the first way to winding down the organs of the Movement political system and in particular the Movement Secretariat.
If you recall over the past three financial years, we have been under intense pressure particularly from the opposition Members of Parliament (MPs) where each time we have been discussing the budget, there have been sustained efforts from them to say we should have no budget and we should close down. They were seeing us at the Secretariat as partisan but fortunately we overcame that. Even the donors came behind the opposition people.
After the referendum that set the pace for multipartyism late last year, this pressure was even more intense. It even became a conditionality that the Secretariat must go but we resisted that because the Movement political system had done such a wonderful job. The fact that we were changing over to another system should not have made it appear as if what we were doing was wrong and therefore we must dismantle quickly. We were dealing with human beings and people who are politically conscious.
Fortunately, Parliament wanted to do it even more constitutionally, so we embedded it in the amended Constitution –– the transitional aspects of it. Under the amended Constitution, Parliament provided that the organs of the Movement political system would stay alive up to the first parliamentary elections under the multiparty system. So the Constitution provides us a time frame which is excellent and that is why you are not hearing too much news because this is a constitutional issue now.
We are managing people in the Secretariat. There are people on the payroll of the Secretariat, there are some at the centre, that is the headquarters, and others are in the countryside. We have to think about the social aspects of these people.
Workers at the Secretariat work on contract, which means that when your contract ends you get your entitlement and you may go home or it may be renewed. In practice we have always renewed virtually all the contracts. The most recent contracts I signed were targeted to March this year because we knew roughly that by March we would have held elections.
So legally speaking only very few contracts go beyond that period but that notwithstanding people have needs. We owe the workers comparatively large sums of money. They were entitled to housing, medical, transport on transfer and appointment allowances. Most of these obligations have not been paid regularly and they have accumulated to about sh4.5 billion. We need to pay that money and we are going to pay it.
Secondly, we think we need to say ‘thank you’ to the people at the Movement Secretariat, so Cabinet passed a decision that people on the payrolls should be paid ex-gratia. For each year of service completed, they would be given one-month salary. So depending on how long you have stayed you will earn a certain amount of money.
The current budget doesn’t have all these money so what we are doing is to agree on a programme with the Ministry of Finance and Public Service. We need to pay some money initially and then give them a programme in the future in which we will provide to them the remaining money.
So for now what we are going to do are three things. First is to pay them some money, a fraction of what is owed to them. Second, we are going to put in place an institutional mechanism so that when they come to ask for the balance of the money they know where to go and the process to go through.
Thirdly, we are going to write to each of the employees a letter specifying what they are owed, what they have been paid, and the institutional mechanism which they have to follow to get the balance.
Some of the people at the Secretariat are already finding work in the National Resistance Movement . For example, Ofwono Opondo is the spokesperson and the Vice Chairman of the Movement Moses Kigongo is also now the Vice Chairman of the NRM. Others have stood for elections and whenever there are opportunities, the Public Service Commission will look kindly to those with skills. The current uproar by some members is basically due to misinformation.
I think some people are provoking and inciting them. I don’t know whether their motives are political or not. Like this time around, some people were told ‘come and pick cheques’ and also told different things and when they arrived here they were really surprised with what was going on. So it is basically misinformation and we hope we will find out soon the purpose for that misinformation.
The uproar is also a result of natural anxiety. People have been having salary, an income and suddenly they are going to be without income and you need to be quite tough to take that in a quiet way. So that also plays into the misinformation.
Some of them were told that the Ministry of Finance had released money but that we had refused to give it to them, which is absolutely inaccurate. Some were told that the money is there but we were not asking for it yet we have volumes and volumes of communication with the treasury.
Everybody knows the situation. The President who was the Chairman of the Movement and the Vice Chairman Mr Kigongo all know what efforts we are making to make sure this closure is as smooth as possible.
Of course the other element in closing the Secretariat is to archive and make sure that fundamental works that the Movement has done are preserved. The documents, the writings of the President and achievements of the Movement are some of the things we are going to cater for.
I am surprised that the disposal of Movement property is generating controversy. Things which you think are common sense are not common sense to everybody. I am absolutely amazed that this should cause any friction. Why am I amazed? Since we started the process of privatisation as a Government, we have gone through a lot of lay-offs in factories and each time there is a lay off there is a procedure of what you do with assets and liabilities.
The civil service itself was contracted, made smaller, and people went home. The Secretariat itself was restructured in 2000 and people who were working in the districts were sent home.
There is a procedure in Government and recently we passed a law, the Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Act, which is very clear and there are two aspects.
There are those assets whose life span is running out, for example vehicles being used by directors and other staff. These are very old and due for write off but there is a law. No single Secretariat property has been disposed off yet and will be disposed off under the laid down procedures.
In total about 180 people are going to be affected by the closure of the Secretariat We are assuring those who we shall have given letters of undertaking that Government does not cheat. If government through omission cheats you, the rule of law in this county is at its best and we have seen people going to the courts of law and you see awards.
I want to call for calm from my colleagues and to assure them that as National Political Commissar and a member of the government, I am pushing for their payment and they will be compensated
accordingly.
The writer is the National Political Commissar
As told to Charles Etukuri
WE have gone over the bumpy path of the first way to winding down the organs of the Movement political system and in particular the Movement Secretariat.
If you recall over the past three financial years, we have been under intense pressure particularly from the opposition Members of Parliament (MPs) where each time we have been discussing the budget, there have been sustained efforts from them to say we should have no budget and we should close down. They were seeing us at the Secretariat as partisan but fortunately we overcame that. Even the donors came behind the opposition people.
After the referendum that set the pace for multipartyism late last year, this pressure was even more intense. It even became a conditionality that the Secretariat must go but we resisted that because the Movement political system had done such a wonderful job. The fact that we were changing over to another system should not have made it appear as if what we were doing was wrong and therefore we must dismantle quickly. We were dealing with human beings and people who are politically conscious.
Fortunately, Parliament wanted to do it even more constitutionally, so we embedded it in the amended Constitution –– the transitional aspects of it. Under the amended Constitution, Parliament provided that the organs of the Movement political system would stay alive up to the first parliamentary elections under the multiparty system. So the Constitution provides us a time frame which is excellent and that is why you are not hearing too much news because this is a constitutional issue now.
We are managing people in the Secretariat. There are people on the payroll of the Secretariat, there are some at the centre, that is the headquarters, and others are in the countryside. We have to think about the social aspects of these people.
Workers at the Secretariat work on contract, which means that when your contract ends you get your entitlement and you may go home or it may be renewed. In practice we have always renewed virtually all the contracts. The most recent contracts I signed were targeted to March this year because we knew roughly that by March we would have held elections.
So legally speaking only very few contracts go beyond that period but that notwithstanding people have needs. We owe the workers comparatively large sums of money. They were entitled to housing, medical, transport on transfer and appointment allowances. Most of these obligations have not been paid regularly and they have accumulated to about sh4.5 billion. We need to pay that money and we are going to pay it.
Secondly, we think we need to say ‘thank you’ to the people at the Movement Secretariat, so Cabinet passed a decision that people on the payrolls should be paid ex-gratia. For each year of service completed, they would be given one-month salary. So depending on how long you have stayed you will earn a certain amount of money.
The current budget doesn’t have all these money so what we are doing is to agree on a programme with the Ministry of Finance and Public Service. We need to pay some money initially and then give them a programme in the future in which we will provide to them the remaining money.
So for now what we are going to do are three things. First is to pay them some money, a fraction of what is owed to them. Second, we are going to put in place an institutional mechanism so that when they come to ask for the balance of the money they know where to go and the process to go through.
Thirdly, we are going to write to each of the employees a letter specifying what they are owed, what they have been paid, and the institutional mechanism which they have to follow to get the balance.
Some of the people at the Secretariat are already finding work in the National Resistance Movement . For example, Ofwono Opondo is the spokesperson and the Vice Chairman of the Movement Moses Kigongo is also now the Vice Chairman of the NRM. Others have stood for elections and whenever there are opportunities, the Public Service Commission will look kindly to those with skills. The current uproar by some members is basically due to misinformation.
I think some people are provoking and inciting them. I don’t know whether their motives are political or not. Like this time around, some people were told ‘come and pick cheques’ and also told different things and when they arrived here they were really surprised with what was going on. So it is basically misinformation and we hope we will find out soon the purpose for that misinformation.
The uproar is also a result of natural anxiety. People have been having salary, an income and suddenly they are going to be without income and you need to be quite tough to take that in a quiet way. So that also plays into the misinformation.
Some of them were told that the Ministry of Finance had released money but that we had refused to give it to them, which is absolutely inaccurate. Some were told that the money is there but we were not asking for it yet we have volumes and volumes of communication with the treasury.
Everybody knows the situation. The President who was the Chairman of the Movement and the Vice Chairman Mr Kigongo all know what efforts we are making to make sure this closure is as smooth as possible.
Of course the other element in closing the Secretariat is to archive and make sure that fundamental works that the Movement has done are preserved. The documents, the writings of the President and achievements of the Movement are some of the things we are going to cater for.
I am surprised that the disposal of Movement property is generating controversy. Things which you think are common sense are not common sense to everybody. I am absolutely amazed that this should cause any friction. Why am I amazed? Since we started the process of privatisation as a Government, we have gone through a lot of lay-offs in factories and each time there is a lay off there is a procedure of what you do with assets and liabilities.
The civil service itself was contracted, made smaller, and people went home. The Secretariat itself was restructured in 2000 and people who were working in the districts were sent home.
There is a procedure in Government and recently we passed a law, the Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Act, which is very clear and there are two aspects.
There are those assets whose life span is running out, for example vehicles being used by directors and other staff. These are very old and due for write off but there is a law. No single Secretariat property has been disposed off yet and will be disposed off under the laid down procedures.
In total about 180 people are going to be affected by the closure of the Secretariat We are assuring those who we shall have given letters of undertaking that Government does not cheat. If government through omission cheats you, the rule of law in this county is at its best and we have seen people going to the courts of law and you see awards.
I want to call for calm from my colleagues and to assure them that as National Political Commissar and a member of the government, I am pushing for their payment and they will be compensated
accordingly.
The writer is the National Political Commissar
As told to Charles Etukuri