Africa-Press – Uganda. The leadership of the National Private School Teachers Association (NPSTA) has petitioned the Leader of Opposition (LoP) Mathias Mpuuga to push government to honor its Shs20 billion Covid-19 relief pledge President Museveni made to the said teachers.
“I would like to put to your office [Mr Mpuuga] to attention that after the outbreak of Covid, government invited us as teachers in private schools to Kololo and promised us Shs20 billion. But I would like to inform you that much as it alleged that we were given that money, we have actually never received it at all,” NPSTA Secretary General Faisal Ssenono Zaake told the LoP on Monday.
According to Ssenono, this delay in fulfilment of the pledge has since cast the leadership of the association in bad light in the face of its members.
“Our colleagues have hurled endless insults at us [NPSTA leaders]. I would therefore like to request the LoP to ask government to honor their pledge and give us the money,” he added.
Mpuuga received the petition after he made a stopover at the Wamatovu Seed Muslim Secondary School in central Uganda as the lawmaker continues his oversight country tours.
After Uganda was struck by the pandemic, President Museveni in one of his televised national addresses pledged that government would extend Shs20 billion to teachers as funds to enable them weather through the adverse effects of pandemic.
On November 2022, the Secretary General of Uganda National Teachers Union (Unatu) Filbert Baguma made follow-up call in which he reminded President Museveni of the need to have the pledge honoured at an event to mark the World Teachers’ Day celebrations in Kampala.
Now Ssenono has since reawaken the push for the release of the said funds insisting that they might have reached the coffers of Unatu.
As he received the petition, Mpuuga decried the deplorable working conditions for some teachers in Uganda.
“An imbalance of their (teachers) motivation can only create an imbalanced output [and] this is really dangerous for our children,” Mpuuga noted before demanding quick redress in line with the petition by state authorities.
Further, he promised to press government to fulfil the Shs20 billion pledge.
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