Sunday, October 14, 2012

WHO ARE THE PENSION BENEFICIARIES? WHO ARE THE GIRRAFFES OF MOROTO HIGH SCHOOL?

Back from my official hideout at planet B! I touched the ground at exactly 2:00PM on this chilly Friday in Moroto town; the first thing to catch me was the fresh news on The Daily Monitor website, “Government Stops Pension, Gratuity Payments”. That more than 60,000 retired civil servants would eat air for some good months as government mounts an operation on wild cuts that are allegedly diverting benefits of the dead, the ignorant and the ‘unconnected’ citizens of this Country. The ‘cats’ reportedly direct shares of these unfortunate groups to their personal accounts.
Uganda at present in my view, ought to be called ‘the pain... ’, and not the pearl of Africa any more. The pension recipients countrywide will sob bitterly following this reported -intended delay. But it is better to cry with anticipation than stay cheated because of ignorance caused probably by denial of information. I refer to millions of Ugandans who do not have any ‘connection’ or access to information or assistance to enable them access such country benefits.
These defenseless creatures are mainly found in the vulnerable regions. You will meet them in Northern Uganda; Acholi land and the soils of Lango. You will see them in Teso, but most of them are also suffocating here in the heat of Karamoja. The need to dig into this corruption suspicion is crucial, but the other very important thing that government should do is to release the nuts on procedures of retirement and processing of benefits- even for the dead ones. Otherwise millions of former civil servants with no benefits are commonplace. They usually complain that the procedure takes a lot of time, money and blood.
Our upcountry beneficiaries are hindered by the transport costs and the absence of what government employees refer to as ‘connections’ at Kampala level. It would make better sense for the Country to decentralise some of these offices that handle benefits of retiring workers so as to reduce the cost to the recipient and to the central government - in terms of work load and also to make it difficult for the wild fat cats in Kampala to continue milking poor village based citizens.
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Moroto: A week ago when students –young boys of Moroto High school scored four goals to just one in a football match they ‘Giraffes” had with Nakapelimen FC here in Moroto, I had a lot of laughter. One of my friends, my good neighbour is a super striker for the mighty Nakapelimen FC. During this particular game – the Semi Final of the famous though poorly facilitated Huhuru Cup, my man did not even have a shot on target. Yes, they lost to the kids and the excuse he gave was that “those boys take a lot of porridge!”
Another colleague in the Nakapelimen league said “our boys took too much of beer the previous day and you know, they had hangover”. The other thing that another player was about to say was that “our boys are married and they had a lot of sex the night before...” these boys almost took away my lungs. Anyway, football is a very exciting game! I don’t advise soccer stars to get addicted to drugs. I used to test Lira-Lira but I remember it affected my speedometer as a trusted winger at Kabalega S.S. I could vomit form whenever I tried to Inzicruiz so as to cross the line and give the goal keeper a killer shot. These days am retired, but not tired of playing football.
Soldiers: I always believe in, and support soldiers because they use military might in everything they do in this world. I cannot believe that the UPDF for instance is a weak force. Bush battles aside; we are talking about other tasks like games, sports. To the Huhuru cup here in Moroto, the army took it last year using the obvious usual military capacity! After escaping the wrath of Nakapelimen FC, the porridge boys of Moroto High School mysteriously invaded the military armoury in Moroto Friday and gave the UPDF a run for their haughtiness.
Personally I did not cheer the porridge boys although the whole world present seem to back the kids against our defence guys. For me, the lession learnt from their game –the Final play to determine the Huhuru cup champions were two; that over-confidence is a killer disease, my combatants had it all. They said it in the bars and in all public places that they at last would retain the cup. It didn’t work out, and it will as well not work for you bombastic man, lady outside there too!
The other is that, luck is for real; even as the match started, everything indicated that the military would win, but a weak pass, a minor personality created the lonely goal for the porridge drunkards and it was end of business for the combatants. Forceful attempts even worsened the UPDF game by producing ‘unfair’ red cards.  Sorry dear losers, take care of tomorrow dear winners...
 
 
           
           
 

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