The ministry of defense has denied opposition claims that it is paying arrears of ex soldiers and servicemen during the election campaign in order to ensure the former soldiers and their relatives support NRM’s Yoweri Museveni.
Gen. Jeje Odong
The Minister of State for Defense, Gen. Jeje Odong says the army has no ulterior motive in paying the ex-soldiers at this time, but because the payment that resulted from a court case the soldiers filed against the government had delayed due to administrative issues.
The ministry announced on Tuesday that it has allocated 13.2 billion shillings to pay pension and ex-gratia arrears to 20,233 ex-servicemen and women, officials of past governments.
Gen. Odong says the ministry is working out modalities on how all ex soldiers will be paid. He says ex-soldiers at the rank of Private will receive an ex-gratia payment of 1.5 million shillings, with the money increasing by100,000 shillings upwards per rank.
The minister the payouts were planned early before the election but the government just availed the money recently after parliament passed a supplementary budget in which the ministry of defense got about 34 billion shillings.
He was backed by army spokesperson Lt. Col Felix Kulaigye who said the ministry of defense begun this exercise in June 2010 by registers the ex soldiers to benefit from the payout scheme.
The enumeration exercise by the Ministry of defense found that
- 2,700 Kings African Riffles ex-servicemen need payment.
- 32,000 Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA) soldiers were recorded.
- 9,900 ex-Uganda army soldiers ares till alive, 11,000 had survivors.
- 1,600 National Resistance Army (NRA) soldiers are alive, 4,800 have survivors.
- 11,000 Local Defence Unit (LDU) need to be paid off (especially those that helped in fighting the
- Allied Democratic Forces in western Uganda0.
- 250 ex- Ugandan National Liberation Front (UNLAF) need to be paid
- 24,000 living UPDF veterans, 30,000 of their survivors need payment.
Gen. Jeje Odong told Journalists and the ministry offices in Mbuya that out of 9,922 UNLA soldiers, a total of 8,118 have been paid, while files for the others are being worked on. He says the 11,000 survivors of the Uganda Army are being helped to acquire letters of administration which are a prerequisite before the government can pay.