New verification of veterans starts next week

WELFARE

KAMPALA - The ministry of defence and veterans' affairs will next month embark on a new exercise to verify claims from veterans or families claiming survivors benefit or ex-gratia.

The countrywide verification exercise, which started in April, aims to collect accurate data on veterans or their estates, in order to facilitate payment of all outstanding claims.

It follows Government's commitment last year to settle all outstanding pension and gratuity claims worth over sh500b by the end of the year 2020. There are an estimated 79,000 veterans.

The verification captures records for five categories of beneficiaries: living veterans, estates of veterans who died in retirement and estates of officers and militants who died in service.

Other beneficiaries are living veterans seeking to receive ex-gratia (paid out of kindness) and estates of veterans who qualify for e-gratia.

According to the defence ministry's press notice on Wednesday, some files for claimants contain missing information.

At the start of the exercise, living veterans with claims were required to present their discharge certificate, bank statement, national ID, revised pension form, assessment and photograph.

For estates of deceased veterans, a computer printout of the deceased's details was required, in addition to certified letters of administration, death certificate, LC letter, among others.

Living veterans were those who fought in World War II as at May 2010, the Ugandan army, Uganda National Liberation Army and NYA as at May 2010.

The army encourages military veterans and estate administrators who have not acquired national IDs to take advantage of the ongoing registration exercise at sub-county level.

Settling the claims backlog is part of the army's reforms aimed at improving the welfare of veterans. All retiring soldiers now entitled to gratuity and pension as soon as they retire.

In case of death, their benefits are paid out to their families within four months to avoid accumulation of a huge backlog.

Government is also finalizing work on a bill to amend the UPDF Act which will, among other provisions, create a framework for funding veterans' programmes.

Consultations are underway to review the formula for computation of benefits for military veterans and their compensation in case of disability.

To update their files, claimants are required to reach their district headquarters and contact chief administrative officers, district internal security officers and zonal pensions officers.

The new verification exercise will run from July 8 to August 2019.