Parliament’s Education Committee has backed President Museveni’s proposal to have all employees of the Higher Education Students Financing Board (HESFB) be compensated and laid off, instead of an initial provision that required the Government to have them redeployed in the Ministry of Education, following the abolition of the Board.
This followed the refusal by President Museveni to sign the Higher Education Students Financing (Amendment) Bill, 2024 into law, where he protested the provision in Section 43 (6) of the Bill (clause 42 (6) of the returned Bill) that required Government to redeploy the affected staff in the public service subject to availability of positions.
The committee’s position was read on the floor of parliament by its chairperson James Kubeketerya during the plenary sitting chaired by the deputy speaker Thomas Tayebwa.
The President rejected the proposal describing it as irregular, arguing that the employees of the Higher Education Students Financing Board were neither appointed in the Education Service by the Education Service Commission in accordance with Article 168(5) of the 1995 Constitution nor appointed in the public service by the Public Service Commission under Article 166(1) of the 1995 Constitution. “This means they are not eligible for redeployment in both the Education Service and the Public Service as proposed in the above section of the Act where the staff intend to join either the education service or the public service and they meet the requirements, they should go through the recruitment process,” wrote President Museveni
The Minister of Public Service, Muruli Mukasa assured Parliament that funds for the payment of terminal benefits for all staff affected with the rationalization process is available and that no employee will be forced to walk on streets or wait at Ministries’ gates to get paid.
His remarks were in response to a question raised by the Ndorwa East member of parliament Wilfred Niwagaba who tasked the Government to clarify where the affected staff will collect their terminal benefits from and if the funds were already available in the national budget.
“The roadmap is, as soon as that is done, these people will get their money. If the money weren’t there, we wouldn’t have a certificate of financial implication. I can assure you, that nobody will be condemned to walking on the streets. There should be no worry, this money is available and people are not going to walk on the streets, waiting, knocking at the gates to get their terminal benefits,” said Muluri.
“I believe most of these particular bodies had their independent terms and conditions of their service for employment for their employees. Now, the bigger question is, on termination of their services, are their payments going to be governed by Public Service or in respect of their individual, independent organizations where they worked. And are monies allocated already to those organizations which we are winding up even before their employees have been compensated?” asked Niwagaba.
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