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Workers protest Oulanyah’s decision on NSSF cash access
Speaker of Parliament Jacob Oulanyah and his deputy Anita Among during a plenary session recently. PHOTO/DAVID LUBOWA.
What you need to know:
- The decision of the Speaker was greeted with surprise and disbelief by workers and their leaders who had fought long and hard to achieve workers’ right of mid-term access to their NSSF savings.
Private sector workers in the country have asked Speaker Jacob Oulanyah to reverse his ruling that a law enacted by the 10th Parliament, which grants members mid-term access to 20 per cent of their National Social Security Fund (NSSF) savings, be tabled afresh for legislation.
The National Organisation of Trade Unions, better known by the acronym Notu, led the frontline fight for the legislation and on Sunday said the National Social Security Fund (Amendment) Bill, 2019, which the previous Parliament enacted in February 2021, should never have been subjected to a fresh legislative process.
Section 24 of the Act, which President Museveni was due to return for a specific amendment by the House, provides that any member aged at least 45 and has saved with the Fund for a decade or more, is eligible to withdraw up to 20 per cent of their savings.
This provision, celebrated by financially distressed workers as a relief amid Covid-19 disruptions to institutional and personal incomes, followed protracted engagement between workers representatives and the President despite outright opposition by NSSF management.
The Fund Managing Director Richard Byarugaba and Finance Minister Matia Kasaija, who is the political overseer of NSSF, argued that mid-term access would require disposal at below-market rates of the Fund’s liquid assets, shrink its cash flow and interest on savings.
With the Act on his table and awaiting his signature, President Museveni summoned a make-or-break meeting on August 4, 2021, during which the different polarised stakeholders reached an understanding.
Subsequently, the President, referring to the Bible story of king Pilate capitulating against his will to the public demand to crucify Jesus Christ, said “You go, I wash my hands. I have become Pontius Pilate [and will sign the law, with changes]”.
That crunch meeting agreed that tMr Museveni would return the Act to the 11th Parliament so that its members change the eligibility criteria from a saver being 45 years or older, or having saved for 10 years, to a saver being 45 years or older and having saved for 10 years.
Before this process could be concluded, new Parliament Speaker Oulanyah, who was a Deputy Speaker of the 10th Parliament, based on Rule 235 of Parliament’s Rules of Procedure, decided last Thursday that any Bill pending processing, or an Act of Parliament awaiting presidential assent, would require to be tabled afresh on the floor of the House.
Rule 235 provides that a Bill, petition or motion or other business before the House or its committee, lapses upon dissolution of Parliament, and the 10th Parliament was dissolved on May 11, a week before swearing in of members of the successor Parliament began on May 17.
Mr Oulanyah's September 16 ruling immediately affected 10 Bills, among them The Sexual Offences Bill, The Succession Bill, Landlord and Tenant Bill 2019, Marriage and Divorce Bill 2015 and the National Health Insurance Bill, in addition to the NSSF (Amendment) Act, 2019.
The decision of the Speaker was greeted with surprise and disbelief by workers and their leaders who had fought long and hard to achieve workers’ right of mid-term access to their NSSF savings. They have promised to engage Mr Oulanyah and President Museveni.
“With our Workers' MPs and sister COFTU (Central Organisation of Free Trade Union), we are going to meet the Speaker about this and all will be corrected…We shall inform the President about the development and what might happen should the Speaker (Oulanyah) not listen to the workers of Uganda… we reject [the decision],” said Mr Usher Owere, the chairman-general of Notu.
Workers’ MP Charles Bakkabulindi, however, struck an optimistic tone, saying “it (a re-tabled NSSF Amendment Bill) does not need a lot of consultations because they [were] already done”.
“Because it is a Bill that has been already passed, the Speaker (Oulanyah) can direct the [Legal and Parliamentary Affairs] Committee to complete [its work] within one week. It [the Bill] will return to the House and be sent to the President for [assent],” he said.
However, the legislative process is more elaborate and lengthier. Cabinet has to approve the broad principles of any intended legislation, the Bill has to be gazetted and the Attorney General, as is the case applicable to NSSF (Amendment) Bill, will, on behalf of government, introduce the Bill to Parliament for the first reading.
Once tabled, the Bill will be sent to the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee of Parliament that scrutinises and collects public views on the proposals and presents its report to the whole House where the Bill is read for a second time for debate on the principles and policies.
Where there is concurrence by members, then Parliament resolves itself into a Committee of the Whole House, for detailed consideration of the Bill, where it is at this Committee Stage scrutinised clause-by-clause, after which the Bill is read for the third and last time and passed to become an Act of Parliament. It becomes law upon presidential assent.
This process can be winding, divisive and costly and takes months or years.
These concerns notwithstanding, Attorney General Kiryowa Kiwanuka, who is the government’s chief legal advisor, told this newspaper on Sunday that “the ruling of the Speaker (Oulanyah) in far as the business of the House is concerned is final”.
“Cabinet will decide on the Bills that will be reintroduced, but if government had brought a Bill [as it did with NSSF Amendment Act), then it was interested and it is likely that they will all be reintroduced,” he added.
Speaker Oulanyah’s decision, whereas based on the Rules of Procedure of Parliament, has opened more questions than it answers; for instance, why the House chair did not early enough guide under Rule 203 of the Rules of Procedure for the Prime Minister, who doubles as the Leader of Government Business in Parliament, to move a motion to reinstate business from the dissolved 10th Parliament.
Mr Wilfred Niwagaba, the Shadow attorney general, said Mr Oulanyah should have focused on saving the Bills considering the time and resources it costs to process and enact them.
“On that aspect is where I disagree totally with him because beginning a Bill [through] the stages of first and second reading is a hectic exercise…,” he said, adding, “But the Speaker’s ruling, unless challenged within the Rules of Procedure, becomes a rule in itself. So, we have to go by it.”
As a possible future remedy, Bugiri Municipality MP, Mr Asuman Basalirwa, suggests that each Parliament must compel the government to conclude key legislations within its tenure and, in the alternative, the Rules of Procedure of Parliament be revised to ensure a new Parliament takes any pending business from the predecessor.
