Gov’t, UNRA disagree on terminal benefits

KAMPALA, UGANDA | THE INDEPENDENT | The Uganda National Road Authority-UNRA, whose responsibilities have been taken back to the Ministry of Works and Transport is disagreeing with the government on how much money should be paid to its former staff as terminal benefits.

At the centre of the disagreement is whether UNRA employees are entitled to severance benefits paid to a worker whose contract is terminated on the basis of redundancy.

The office of the Attorney General believes that UNRA employees are not entitled to severance benefits because the organization is not being restructured like the UNRA employment manual envisages but rather is being abolished altogether.

Allen Kagina the Executive Director of UNRA in a letter to the Parliamentary Committee on Infrastructure argues that if UNRA is going to be abolished like it has, the government has to pay at least 196 billion Shillings in terminal benefits.  “As per the Employment Act, 2006, Section 87(1) provides that severance pay shall be negotiated between the employer and employee or their representatives. Similarly, the UNRA Human Resource Manual, in line with the Board’s mandate, states that severance packages are to be determined by the UNRA Board.

ln 2021, the Board approved a formula for calculating severance payments, which established a rate of three months’ salary for each year of continuous service. At the time the severance was first calculated, the total liability was estimated at 227 billion. However, due to the departure of some staff and the expiration of several fixed-term contracts, the figure has since decreased. The current quantum, as of December 2024, stands at Shs 196 billion,” Kagina’s letter reads in part.

The letter adds that the 11 billion and 46 billion Shillings that the government calculated as payable to UNRA employees are inconsistent with their calculations.

However, in his legal opinion to the Minister of Finance Planning and Economic Development, Pius Perry Biribonwoha, the deputy Solicitor General said in their view, the former UNRA employees are not entitled to severance benefits because their agency is not being restructured as envisaged by their employment manual but they are being abolished altogether. “From the definitions of restructuring above, it is clear that restructuring, in the context of UNRA, would mean making changes to how UNRA is organised and administered to make the UNRA function better. In our view, that is not what RAPEX is attempting to do…RAPEX seeks to abolish the Authority entirely and transfer its function to the Ministry. No redundancies are being created in the UNRA because of rationalization since the Authority is being abolished,” Biribonwoha’s letter reads in part.

It adds that the claim to severance pay by UNRA employees based on the Human Resource Policy Manual 2019 and the Board Resolution can’t stand legal scrutiny since no employee of UNRA has been rendered redundant due to RAPEX. “Our opinion is that the figure for severance pay should be deducted from the total cost of the terminal benefits for UNRA staff,” Biribwonwoha adds.

The State Minister for Works, Musa Ecweru said the government is ready to absorb most UNRA staff who are willing to accept Public Service contracts. “All the technical staff of UNRA are to be absorbed in the Ministry as long as they agree to the Public Service terms and conditions. Other cadres like lawyers, land surveyors, human resources, internal auditors and accountants, who will not be absorbed by the Ministry of Works and Transport, will be recommended for employment in the line ministries.

The Ministry of Public Service had undertaken to request the Public Service Commission to halt the recruitment of new staff in the public service until all the staff from the affected entities are absorbed. Therefore, the staff of UNRA with the requisite qualifications are guaranteed employment,” the Minister told MPs sitting on the Committee of Infrastructure.

UNRA has been employing 1,544 staff with 1358 permanently and 151 on a contractual basis. The agency has been spending 71.1 billion Shillings every year on the wage bill for its employees.

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