The saga of unpaid wages for Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) casual workers, specifically street sweepers have reached a resolution on Tuesday, March 5, 2024.
In a meeting with Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) leadership, the Speaker of Parliament, Anita Among, announced that payments will be made to the sweepers’ Saccos on Wednesday, March 6, 2024.
“Payment is going to be made tomorrow and concluded there and then, not starting tomorrow; let us have these people paid; it looks ugly seeing them suffering; these are your mothers, wives, and sisters; it is not a good sight, seeing them troubled and pained,” she said.
This announcement comes after months of frustration and hardship raised by KCCA essential workers. The sweepers, who had not been paid for the past four months, staged a protest in front of Parliament last week to highlight their plight.
Present in the meeting were KCCA Executive Director Dorothy Kisaka, Permanent Secretary Ramathan Ggoobi, and Minister of KCCA and Metropolitan Affairs, Minsa Kabanda.
As the immediate concern of payment was addressed, the Speaker also asked the KCCA to streamline their budgeting process.
“Budgeting these payments under recurrent expenditure will prevent future delays,” she noted.
Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago, however, proposed a more systemic solution of zoning Kampala into clusters and allocating sanitation contracts to companies. He suggested that this would eventually lead to the phasing out of the SACCO system.
While the long-term solution remains under discussion, the immediate concern and the financial hardship faced by the city’s sweepers have been addressed through Speaker Among’s intervention and KCCA’s commitment to pay their outstanding wages.
