Uganda Investments Authority boss Robert Mukiza has said this was a justified pay only to be interpreted by Minister Anite in her own way.
In a statement to UIA Board dated June 14, 2024, Mukiza explained that upon termination of the owner’s engineer (OE) on August 29, 2022, additional responsibilities were assigned to the project management team (PMT) assisted by some UIA staff to bridge the gap in the supervision of the infrastructure development at KIBP.
He said the project manager of the infrastructure development at KIBP in consultation with him made a proposal to the UIA board, which sat and approved that the agency’s management consider remunerating the staff for their additional responsibilities and guided them to execute it within the law.
Following the board’s approval, management ensured that the PMT staff were assigned roles and responsibilities of the OE to supervise the project.
They also ensured that the roles and responsibilities of UIA staff in assisting the PMT to undertake the OE’s roles and responsibilities were given, the statement, a copy of which this publication has seen and confirmed by Mukiza, said.
The terms of reference were the staff’s deliverables, which were beyond their employment duties and, therefore, extraordinary, Mukiza told the UIA Board.
Mukiza also explained that the UIA management considered section 3.28 of the Human Resource Manual (HRM) on the applicable allowance in line with the employer’s project governance and management structure.
Section 3.28 of the approved HRM stipulates that honorarium is an allowance payable when UIA wants a particular piece of work to be carried out by an employee within a specified period of time, which is exceptionally important to UIA and is outside the normal scope of the employee’s official duties.
It also states that honorarium shall be paid on satisfactory completion of the assignment and explains how it is computed.
SELECTING STAFF
Mukiza also said that the UIA staff were chosen based on their roles and that the contract provides project management costs as a provision sum in the contract.
“Provisional sums are to be spent on instructions by the employer. Therefore, this item caters to management costs,” he told the UIA Board.
Mukiza also noted that an honorarium, like any other allowance, is subject to statutory deductions of the Pay As You Earn and the employee’s contribution to the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) of 5%.
He said this is in accordance with section 19 (1) (a) of the Income Tax Act Cap 340 and the NSSF Act and that the statutory deductions were instructed to be deducted at source.
Mukiza also said OE was earning €313,298.58 (about sh1.2b), which translates to €104,432.86 (about sh414m) per month.
“The OE would have earned €626,597.16 (about sh2.4b) in the period [of] September 2022 to February 2023. The paid honoraria for the same period totals €124,822.63 (about sh495m), hence a saving of €501,774.53 (about sh1.9b),” he said.
Mukiza also noted that when they did this work, the Government saved €1,497,864 (about sh5.9b) over the period the employers’ representative’s procurement was ongoing.
“The process of procuring the OE continued in accordance with the board’s decision which was concluded and the OE is in place. The decision of the board actually saved the institution €1,497,864.”
