Prime
Taxing health workers’ salaries is suicidal
Ibrahim Kitatta
What you need to know:
‘‘ We need a healthy and well-motivated health worker today, not a happy family of a deceased health worker.
The e extreme sacrifices we are asking health workers to offer require an immediate response to recognise the risks they are facing in the fight against the pandemic.
The government and 11th Parliament owe frontline workers urgent policy change to ensure their miserable pay is increased and protected from taxes.
Personal protective equipment (PPE) must also be provided as a matter of urgency to protect our heroes. Some health workers have contracted the virus in the line of duty, struggled to access quality care and eventually died.
Some of the health workers have been forced to leave the country in search for better working conditions abroad. A major cause of the shortage in countries like Uganda is a familiar phenomenon known as the “brain drain”. In a devastating pandemic, workers will have painful devastating impacts.
I have consulted widely and confirmed existence of a hardship allowance of Shs80,000 per day for a nurse, a doctor, laboratory assistant or other health workers directly treating Covid-19 patients.
The current tax law aggregates one’s total earnings as long as such exceeds Shs430,000 per month and subjects it to a direct tax bracket of 30 per cent, therefore allowances of all the above categories of people are taxed under the same arrangement.
This means that out of the Shs80,000, they will go home with about Shs56,000 only.
The Ministry of Health did not tax the first batch of these allowances that was given to health workers who served in the first wave in 2019/2020 but the Auditor General’s report of the same year, faulted this as a serious audit query.
The Permanent Secretary of the Health ministry, recently informed Members of Parliament that she wrote to the Ministry of Finance seeking exemption of this tax, sighting that it was greatly demoralising health workers but the Finance ministry wrote back maintaining the 30 per cent tax.
Nevertheless, Article 152 doesn’t oblige the Finance minister to seek approval by Parliament on tax waivers but rather to notify Parliament over his decision, which means that it’s easy and possible to exempt our health workers too from paying taxes.
Recently, MPs were advocating for a package of Shs100m as compensation for the family of a deceased health worker, this is not bad. But we need a healthy and well-motivated health worker today, not a happy family of a deceased health worker.
Therefore, on top of the non-taxed allowances and salaries:
The National Medical Stores, which is charged with distribution of PPEs, should also adjust their distribution plan and tailor it to match the demand at regional referral level, but also to accommodate lower facilities at local governments.
On transport for stakeholders and surveillance, we applaud the wise decision for procurement of double cabin pick-up trucks to support districts. Many Ugandans have responded negatively to this move forgetting the relief that these provide for efficient coordination of health services within the districts.
We also credit the Ministry of Health for the ongoing efforts since 2017 for construction of staff houses and upgrading of lower health units in different parts of the country to offer a wider coverage of services.
However, Lwengo District should be considered in the next batch so that we don’t stop at admiring others.
Still on the procurement of these vehicles, there is need for flexibility in our procurement laws especially when dealing with such emergencies. Quite often, the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Health has been advocating for the same.
As we wait for a more severe wave (3rd) which scientists anticipate might hit us harder, it is better it finds a better motivated workforce. Together, we can defeat this Covid-19 pandemic.
The author, Mr Ibrahim Kitatta is the Lwengo District chairperson. [email protected]
