KCCA cleaner/Courtesy photo
The Speaker of Parliament, Anita Among has called on Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) to clear the six months wage arrears owed to the casual labourers within the City.
This is after some of the cleaners stormed Parliament to demonstrate the delayed payment of their wages by the Authority.
“On Monday 26th February, a group of casual labourers from KCCA also matched to the gate of Parliament to agitate for the pending six months wages, they haven’t been paid for 6months. Article 40(1) of the Constitution provides for equal payment for equal work without discrimination. I want to urge the leadership of KCCA to ensure that the aggrieved persons are attended to because people can’t work without being paid, how are their families being looked after? We want those people to be paid because at least we know, money has always been released for wages,” said Speaker.
It should be noted that in January 2024, MPs on the Presidential Affairs Committee led by Richard Sebamala (Bukoto Central) also raised concern over the Kampala has deteriorating cleanliness in the City, asking the officials to explain whether this could be attributed to the meagre pay of Shs6000 being given to the cleaners daily.
He said, “There is some bit of deterioration in cleanliness and when I went down and asked these people what is the problem and they told me they get Shs6000 to come and clean a City stretch every single day. Can anyone earn Shs6000 or Shs7000 a day for cleaning? It is absurd, how do these people treat themselves? How do they travel? However much you can have a constrained budget but even Shs10,000 isn’t enough for a cleaner who wakes up in that dust, congestion and noise every single day.”
“I would like to know whether their emoluments have been improved in the next budget. At least Shs20,000, from where can you work on Shs5000 a day? You know let us not treat people who haven’t gone to school or who are semi-educated like they aren’t doing us a service at all. We are worrying about cleanliness and we want the city clean, but we the elites that are earning more, why not give them what is substantial to perform?” added Sebamala.
His sentiments were shared by Adome (Moroto Municipality) who remarked, “If you look at the way roads are cleaned, these dead animals, they leave them on road side until they rot. They clean the rubbish but dead animals, especially dogs are left there until they rot. I don’t know why this happens, is it because they are paid less money? And this is something that has been happening for so many years.”
Kisaka in response blamed the meagre pay to the street cleaners on the limited budget allocated to the Authority saying that the cleaners are currently working within their respective SACCOs in the five divisions, where they are given money and they manage themselves as SACCOs.
