Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has challenged civil servants in the country to take pay cuts and support efforts to fight coronavirus.
Museveni said this while addressing the nation on the COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.
“Why public servants have not cut salaries. Your people pay me 3.6m then NRM takes a percentage. The remaining 2.7, I will tell Janet to accept 1.4m. Janet will sign each month to the fund. Thank you so much for asking that. Political leaders, they are asking you,” Museveni said on Tuesday night.
Uganda has over 400k civil servants and his comments came after a caller asked why government officials were not taking pay cuts to support efforts to fight the disease.
Leaders in the region especially Kenya and Rwanda have taken pay cuts to support their country’s coronavirus fight.
Museveni also used the occasion to bash MPs for accepting the controversial shs10bn from the supplementary budget saying it was morally wrong.
“I thank Ugandans for being cooperative but we were sort of diverted by the UGX 20 million by parliament. That UGX 20 million is bad planning because we had already planned in a certain way,” Museveni said.
In the 3-hour address, Museveni praised health workers’ expertise and the resilience of Ugandans who’ve had to deal with a nationwide lock down that is expected to end on 5th May.
The president is expected to address the nation before that date to provide guidelines on expected easing of restrictions.
Uganda has 79 cases of coronavirus with majority of cases in recent days, coming from truck drivers bringing in much needed imports.
The country has also registered 52 recoveries with no fatalities.
Museveni ruled out blocking truck drivers from coming into the country.
