Enhance pay, but mind social safety more

The unfortunate murder of a minister by his bodyguard kicked off a conversation about improving the welfare of employees and enhancing their salaries. That many, especially the women and men in uniform, are not well catered for. That they are so stressed for failure to make ends meet for their families and themselves. They are now very angry and frustrated that they have become a danger to others and even to themselves.

In any working environment, pay, working conditions and welfare take up a large part of the discussions for overall improvement of an enterprise or venture.  As a factor of production, labour supersedes others in a way, for it ‘operates’ the land, and capital which may include the plant and machinery like the machine gun. So the argument to keep labour appeased cannot be overemphasised.

The trouble with the issue of simply looking at enhancing pay and improving ‘working conditions’ is that man does not live on a good salary alone even if it is ‘big’. You need to look at Uganda in the 60s and 70s. Factoring in inflation and putting the value of the money aside, the public servant was not earning or exposed to stealing millions and even billions like it is today. But many managed to put large and extended families through school plus daily life.  One of the advantages that generation had over the current one warts and all, is that there was a reasonable social safety net in place.

The public servant had a subsidised house so the pressure to build or pay rent was minimal, unlike today. 

Since most resided in designated areas, there was a shuttle to transport them to and from work thus saving on fuel out of pocket. Their children did not pay a fare on the public bus between home and school for the day scholars. The ones who travelled to schools upcountry had good arrangements too that were pocket friendly.

Today the beginning and end of term sees transport fares shooting up. The private players take advantage of the increase of passengers.

The people in uniform had their own army shops where they purchased groceries below the market price unlike today where they have to compete in the market like anyone else. They travelled together with family free of charge on the now extinct  public passenger train and bus service whose network covered most of the country.

Good medical care in what is called the government hospital was generally free and very reliable. Most of the children of that generation were born in what are today’s run-down public hospitals that have become hospices with no vital medicine and well paid essential staff.  Education in public schools was subsidised to the extent that a lower and mid level public servant could afford to take their children to the top schools run by the government and the main faiths like Nakasero Primary School, or Gayaza High School, etc.

Above all University education at Makerere was free unlike today where there is an endless tug of war and strikes over tuition.

If you simply ‘enhance’ salaries and ‘improve’ the working conditions without a holistic overview of all other aspects of social safety and the economy you may  still have to deal with an agitated work force. The neoliberal economics of cost sharing and leaving social services to the private sector will be your undoing. It simply widens the leakage of pay.

An increase will be gladly swallowed by the small cliques very close to power that have personalized the economy under the guise of privatization. They have perilously stretched the social safety net. Most people fall through.

With the public hospital and school system on the brink of collapse because of neglect and underfunding, school and hospital fees in private facilities have become unbearable yet the economy is growing steadily and inflation has allegedly been kept at single digits for decades of a prosperous, peaceful phase of good leadership.

The privates come with all sorts of tricks and unethical behavior to squeeze the last coin out of the user.

The joke doing the rounds is that the shopping list of a student is like that of a suitor going for an introduction ceremony. In some cases it includes cement.

Observers claim that the clinics will want most births to be by cesarean section which is more expensive than the normal delivery. Many financial institutions now have school fees packages and students study on credit.

Citizens may now get medical treatment or give birth to children on loan. Otherwise one has to sell property, especially land or crowd funds from relatives and friends to jump these hurdles.

The increase in pay for a soldier will be wiped out if their wife needs a cesarean section in a reasonably safe private hospital.

Just recall Uganda at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Many with a good salary who did not get a slot in the public hospitals that were providing free treatment, were challenged by the  tens of millions for the ICU and oxygen cylinders in private facilities.

The drain on salaries is similarly felt when you do not have cheap public transport so you have to contend with huge unsubsidized fuel bills.

When the road network is dominated by potholes and gullies, like it is in Kampala, the garage bills eat up the salary.

If one can only have affordable and available housing, far away from the workplace, the improvement in the pay for the teacher or nurse will be swallowed by transport fares.

They will also lose a lot of productive time waking up early and sitting in the traffic gridlock to and from work.

Yet such a person may use that wasted time to moonlight as a dressmaker, baker or run corner shop or hair salon.

As part of the package there have to be deliberate policies on employment including expanding the public workforce to ensure that as many people as possible get appropriate skills to earn a decent living.

Otherwise if you enhance the salaries of a few, the armies of the unemployed will be out to eat out of their hands as leaches or as criminals. The one with better pay will then budget more on security of life and property.

Enhance salaries but also create an environment that hedges salary earners and their pay. That means directing more funding to public interventions.

Even if these don’t, on the surface look financially profitable, their social impact far outweighs the economic setbacks to the government.   

Nicholas Sengoba
Plainly speaking, 
Twitter: @nsengoba