Bank of Uganda alleges that the 77 employees took advantage of the promulgation of the Registration of Persons Act, No. 4 of 2015 to lower their ages while registering for the national identity cards against the records they filed with the bank at the start of their employment.
The Registration of Persons Act No. 4 of 2015, promulgated on March 26, 2015, among others, provides for the issuance of national identification cards and creates the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA).
In the suit filed by BoU lawyers of MMAKS Advocates, in the Civil Division of the High Court, the Central Bank alleges that following the promulgation of the Act, a practice emerged in which various public servants registered dates with NIRA that gave them ages a few years younger, but seldom older than the ages previous registered by them with their employers.
This was soon discovered to be a ploy to postpone retirement dates or accrue more pension or NSSF contributions by employees pushing forward the date at which they would attain the age of 55 years at which age the BoU’s obligation to pay the 10 percent employers contribution to NSSF would cease.
On February 6, 2017, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Public Service pursuant to section L-b (7) of the Uganda Public Service Standing Orders clarified that the date of birth of a public officer shall be that which was initially declared and recorded on commencement of employment.
Earlier, on November 11, 1999, the BoU’s Board of Directors then also reviewed the change of dates of birth matter and concluded in Board Resolution No 247 that the guiding age for all purposes shall be the age declared by an employee on commencing employment.
In November 2021, the government-owned New Vision reported that more than 1,000 civil servants in central and local governments had applied to have their age changed. The vast majority were inching closer to 60 years, which is the mandatory retirement age.
Documents seen by Sunday Monitor including copies of national IDs and appointment letters show that the accused current and former employees while commencing employment with the BoU filled out the formal declaration forms indicating their ages of birth which ages turned out to be different from those declared to NIRA when the accused employees were registering for national identity cards.
Enter NSSF
BoU like any employer is required to pay NSSF a monthly contribution of 15 percent of the wages of its “eligible employee. The monthly contribution is made up of a 10 percent contribution by the employer and five percent contribution by the employee.
NSSF carried out an audit of BoU’s compliance with NSSF contributions and concluded the accused employees are entitled to rely on their NIRA declared age and have the BoU continue to make NSSF contributions in relation to them, notwithstanding the discrepancy with their earlier declared age when their employment commenced.
