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In Uganda, the most complaining civil servants are teachers mostly those in primary. They are not paid well and trek long distances to reach to their places of work. One would think that because their contribution is very paramount, they would be living without complaining.
Making reference to Museveni as quoted by the Monitor on 27th June 1997; “It is criminal for MPs to earn shillings four million when the primary teacher is earning shillings seventy thousand per month”-said Museveni.
The president is no longer having the same thoughts like in 1997 when he cared about the primary teachers who painfully endure the hardships in the Uganda of today and even have to deliver as needed.
Two nation wide teacher protests initiated by the Uganda National Teacher’s Union (UNATU) in 2019 and 2023 haven’t yielded any fruit as the president instead considered the science teachers in secondary schools who take home a whooping Shs4m and he has severally told off the arts teachers not to rush him for salary increments.
In a rather heartbreaking revelation to the arts teachers, Museveni has said the government he presides over and the country he leads is too broke to increase salaries of its workers especially the suffering primary teachers and their arts counter parts in secondary schools.
While presiding over the passing out of 413 secondary school headteachers from the greater Western Uganda, Mubende and Kasanda districts at the National Leadership Institute (NALI) in Kyankwanzi upon completing ideological orientation training at the weekend and reacting to pleas by arts teachers to have their salaries increased, Museveni left public servants who were eager waiting for salary increments that they will have to wait a bit longer.
“How will the state pay good salaries if there’s no social-economic transformation? Where does it get money from? When we took over the government, we were earning very small salaries for a long time, even now i earn a small salary”-Museveni said
He emphasized that it is only until the country achieves the desired social-economic transformation that the government can have resources available to increase the salaries of public servants.
If families undergo social-economic transformation in societies, they create jobs, people get income, and the will be able to pay taxes. When they pay taxes, the government gets more money, then it will be able to pay good salaries to public servants”-he noted
He also defended his strategy of emphasising sciences and priotizing their welfare than that of their arts counterparts despite both teaching the same students. The president says the country now needs engineers, medical doctors than the arts.
We need these scientists more because we need engineers, and medical doctors, among others. I studied arts but i cannot come with my Shakespeare to put up a bridge, he said, adding, “Recently i was in a small war with you, the teachers. When we got a little bit of money, we decided to enhance the salaries of scientists. That is where the war started”-said Museveni
CREDIT: DAILY MONITOR
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