Africa-Press – Uganda. Former employees of the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) are up in arms with the Energy ministry about circumstances under which they lost their jobs.
The group was affected by a rationalisation plan in which 157 agencies are supposed to either be collapsed, merged with others or sent back to their parent ministries on the recommendation of the Public Service ministry.
The Public Service ministry recommended that 35 agencies be consolidated or merged into 19 agencies; 35 sent back to their parent ministries; and 80 agencies be retained as semi-autonomous agencies.
The aggrieved former REA staff, however, accuse their former bosses in the Energy ministry of having gone about the implementation of the Cabinet directive the wrong way.
In a November 30, 2022, letter addressed to Ms Irene Batebe—the Energy ministry Permanent Secretary—the former REA employees write: “Oddly, on August 29, 2022, in a stark departure from the approved structure communicated by MPs, you went ahead to misrepresent and abridge the available positions in MEMD [Ministry of Energy and mineral Development] to be tilled by the former staff of REA. Your internal memo offended the letter and spirit of regulation 12(2) (a) of the Electricity (Establishment and Management of the Rural Electrification Fund) Instrument, No. 29 of 2021 all to the detriment of our clients.”
Mr Solomon Muyita—the ministry’s spokesperson—told Sunday Monitor that the structure had been followed.
“Former REA staff were given a soft landing by the Cabinet. The Cabinet expanded the structure of the ministry to create positions for them.
The structure was ring-fenced for REA staff only. They did not compete for those positions with any other person and each of them was allowed to apply for at least two positions,” Mr Muyita said.
In a May 23 letter to the Attorney General, a copy of which Monitor has seen, the former REA staff complained that their demands that they be paid entitlements and benefits in line with the ERA human resource manual had been ignored.
Their demands
They are now demanding that they be paid three months’ salary in lieu of notice; earned leave entitlement; a golden handshake of three months’ salary; NSSF remittances; and transport for themselves, families and belongings back to their home districts.
Mr Muyita, however, insists that they are not entitled to such payments under their initial employment terms.
“They were on contract in REA and those contracts had expired by the time REA was moved to the ministry. You cannot claim terminal benefits unless the contract stipulates that at the end of your contract, you shall be entitled to such and such,” Mr Muyita explained.
The group also accused the Energy ministry of having ignored the advice contained in two letters, one of August 9, 2022, and another of February 24, 2023, in which the solicitor general recommended that they be paid.
They also accuse the Ministry of Energy of having gone about the payment of terminal benefits in a discriminatory manner.
The group is also demanding reinstatement to their jobs, saying their termination ran afoul of the provisions of the agency’s human resource manual.
The group had in a November 30, 2022, letter addressed to the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Energy, and copied to, among others, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Public Service, and the Deputy Secretary to the Public Service Commission, accused their former employer of violating their right to employment.
“Be advised that regulation 12(2) (a) of the Electricity (Establishment and Management of the Rural Electrification Fund) Instrument, No. 29 of 2021 mandated a transfer of services and not a termination of our clients’ contracts of employment,” the letter reads in part, adding, “The unfortunate act of subjecting them to fresh interviews as a prerequisite for their deployment in the MEMD amounts to constructive termination as it claws back the job security the law guaranteed them.”
Mr Muyita, however, told Sunday Monitor that all REA staff were given a chance to join the Energy ministry by sitting interviews. He added that it was only those who did not meet the qualifications that did not join the ministry.
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