Kampala – The former staff of Uganda Electricity Transmission Company Limited (UETCL) were laid off due to budgetary constraints, management has said.
According to Joshua Karamagi, UETCL CEO, management in May 2022 took a decision to lay off 66 staff whose contracts expired on 30 June 2023 after failing to secure funds from government to have their contracts renewed.
“The 66 staff who were released were being funded by government and there were no funding provisions from the Ministry of Energy. The funding had been taken away from the budget for that specific project,” Karamagi said.
This, he said during a meeting of UETCL board led by the State Minister of Energy, Sidronius Okaasai and the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources on Wednesday, August 9, 2023.
The committee has been analyzing a petition from the disgruntled staff who are protesting what they termed as “unfair dismissal”.
In their petition, the affected staff protest the decision to dismiss them and retain others saying, it is unjust, discriminatory and should be rescinded.
Karamagi contends that whereas all staff belong to UETCL, they are tagged to different projects which can be affected by the source of funding.
