By Godwin Abedican

Arua
 
Pensioners from the former greater Arua district which comprises of the districts of Arua, yumbe, Koboko, Maracha, Terego, Madi Okollo, Adjumani, Moyo, Zombo, Nebbi and Pakwach who retired as civil servants while serving in the greater Arua district risk missing in their payments due to failure to verify and validate their details.

This comes after the ministry of public service snet a list of 347 pensioners to the office of the Chief Administrative officer of Arua district requiring them to report for the validation of their details in order to be migrated to the new payment system called Human Capital Management System (HCMS) as opposed to the old payment system the Integrated Personnel and Payroll System (IPPS).

In the aftermath of the list, the district ran radio announcements and published the list on the district notice boards but two weeks later by Monday 13^th November 2023, only 107 pensioners have responded to the call, casting in to doubt the fate of the remaining 240 pensioners who have not responded to the call.

Nicholas Ogwang, the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Arua district says this is a requirement for all the public servants as he appeals to the affected to comply“From the time this exercise started we have experienced challenges that there are still a big number of pensioners whose records have not ben validated. The validations which happened in the past were not under the HCMS system, so it’s important that they comply he,” appealed.

In this verification exercise its required that active pensioners present copies on national IDs meanwhile estate administrators are expected to provide letters of administration and copies their IDs with death certificates.

Emily Gutru, the Human Resource Officer Arua District Local Government associates the poor turn up for the exercise to information gap the low level of turn up by the pensioners and those affected much as they have tried to circulate the information. “Some of these people are very old without phones and neither do they listen to radio announcements it becomes hard for them to get information. We are trying to use their friends to mobilize them to come for this exercise because without being migrated in to the new system one cannot access the payroll,” Gutru said.

After the verification and validation, Arua district is expected to submit a report to the ministry of public service and if successful, then the persons verified are the migrated to the new payment system.

However, Anguyo Pariyo, the General Secretary of Arua district Pensioners association, the district leadership is to blame for the anomalies in the details of the pensioners in the district. “For us here we blame the human resource office. What exactly the problems are, we do not know. We have been on their necks several times and they give us various reasons which we are not satisfied with.  We expect that it should be a smooth transition from the IPPS to HCMS since the same details that pensioners have been using are required,” he explained. 
 
Adam Okumu Openytho, qualified as a public servant in 1964 and started teaching in 1965 before retiring in 2005, he questions why his detail are being queried after he has been earning his gratuity for the last 17 years. “I have been receiving my payments for the last 17 years. It’s just last month that this happened. Something I really have questions about.” Okumu angrily narated.

The district has a total of 917 on the pensioners payroll, 570 already migrated to HCM from IPPS and 347 are to be verified with as only 107 having responded for the ongoing verification and validation exercise.

COVER PHOTO: Some pensioners checking their names on the district notice board By Godwin Abedican