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Former NSSF boss asks to be reinstated
What you need to know:
- The immediate past NSSF boss didn’t also mince on his words when he openly accused Ms Betty Amongi, the Labour minister, of muddling in the Fund’s day-to-day activities such as running the rule over its budget.
The immediate past managing director of the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) has asked Parliament to push for his reinstatement to his former job.
Mr Richard Byarugaba told a House committee probing mismanagement claims at the Fund that his reappointment will “avert [any] reputational damage.”
“I would like the investigations to be done but there is no reason for me not to be in office while these investigations are being done because it has happened before [and] therefore all these things can happen while I am in office,” he told the parliamentary committee on Friday.
Mr Byarugaba was appearing before the seven-member committee to respond to abuse of office allegations levelled against him. He told the House Select Committee headed by Mr Mwine Mpaka (Mbarara City South) that problems at the Fund can be traced back to when the Finance ministry was given supervisory powers.
“Parliament should consider the removal of dual supervision of the Fund as this has proved to stifle decision making and on the part of accountability,” Mr Byarugaba told the lawmakers.
The amended NSSF Act gives the Finance minister and the counterpart at the Labour docket supervisory powers over the Shs17 trillion Fund. Mr Byarugaba reckons this negatively affects the administration of the Fund, not least because it slows down the decision-making process.
“It would be better that we have one top [person] in charge. For me, it is the principle that dual reporting has already shown its ugly head,” Mr Byarugaba said.
The immediate past NSSF boss didn’t also mince on his words when he openly accused Ms Betty Amongi, the Labour minister, of muddling in the Fund’s day-to-day activities such as running the rule over its budget.
“In less than one year, once we have transferred back to the [Labour] ministry, corruption, influence peddling, delay in decision making, [and other] scandals are back to haunt the savings. We had left the press but we are back to it,” Mr Byarugaba said, adding, “The press by the way are happy with this. They love it. It sells their paper. Unfortunately, while they make their money, the Fund’s reputation derails.”
The committee commenced work on Tuesday and has already interfaced with ministers Matia Kasaija (Finance) and Amongi (Gender).
The Auditor General, Mr John Muwanga, Workers’ lawmakers and Uganda Retirement Benefits Regulatory Authority (URBRA) are the other top figures and entities that have been sounded out.
Chief among the submissions and evidence tabled before the House on Friday were findings unearthed by Mr Muwanga. In the audits made on NSSF, Mr Muwanga noted that “the Fund did not allocate the members’ individual accounts a sum of Shs38.21 billion (2020), Shs45 billion (2021) and Shs57 billion (2022) due to incomplete [records] and errors in the members’ records.”
The committee also briefly heard from Mr Job Richard Matua, a saver with the Fund, early this week. Mr Byarugaba told lawmakers on Friday that he broke down and cried when he heard Mr Matua making sweeping claims about his persona on a local radio station.
Besides the submissions made by various witnesses who have been and or are yet to be received by the committee, the lawmakers have also scheduled to make on-site inspections to various sites that are deemed to be relevant to feeding into the findings of the probe.