En revisions-gennemgang nåede frem til, at hundreder af pensioner til f.eks. lærere og tjenestemænd blev udbetalt til ikke-eksisterende personer – og det er dyrt i længden for statskassen i et fattigt u-land som Uganda.
More than 60.000 retired Ugandan teachers, civil servants and soldiers have had their payments halted after an audit exposed “ghost pensioners”, writes BBC online Friday.
Pensioners have not received their September payment and treasury officials say it may be another two weeks before they do. But pensioners fear the clean-up of the pension payroll may take much longer.
The recent investigation found hundreds of pension payments were being made every month to non-existent people.
According to Uganda’s private Daily Monitor newspaper, an audit exposed how the pension list included names that appear more than once and people with different names but the same bank account number.
Some names on the pensions payroll were revealed to be still in service and not retired, the paper says.
The failure to pay September’s pension is already making life difficult for thousands of people relying on the monthly money to buy food essentials and medication.
A few years ago, the system for paying salaries in the army – one of the worst offenders – was overhauled and all soldiers are now paid via bank accounts.
This year the teaching profession was audited to weed out non-existent workers. However, this led to complaints when some genuine teachers did not receive their salaries for up to six month.
