President Yoweri Museveni has assured the Hon. Judges of state security after their retirement and said judicial officers should retire with 100% of their normal service benefits.
The President was on September 2, 2015 speaking to over 63 judges whom he hosted at State House in Entebbe, said this is a cost effective way of addressing the welfare of the judicial officers.
He said there is no serious dialogue between the three arms of government; the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary, to talk about strategy and ideology of the country.
"We only talk about sharing resources which is not enough. We must understand, what does the State want to do? There’s a weakness of harmony and orientation of strategy,” he said.
Responding to a presentation by the Chief Justice, Hon. Justice Bart M. Katureebe, on the transformation of the Judiciary for National Development, President Museveni cited UPE and USE that were initiated by government following a steady tax collection regime.
"We thought having these children in school was unavoidable. When the tax collection improved from UShs2.8 billion in 1986 to UShs728 billion in 1997, we started UPE. The number of children in school jumped from the initial UShs2.5million to UShs8.8million. The Problem is that with policies and prioritization, the Judiciary is not involved that is why they don’t get the logic and factors taken into account,” he said.
The President said with the tax collection now at UShs12, 000 billion (12 trillion), government has invested in infrastructure development in the education, health, roads and electricity sectors.
"Public service increased teachers from 80,000 to 160,000 with increased classrooms. There was load shedding which has stopped. We were spending very little of our money on infrastructure and depended on donors,” he said.
The President said government now spends UShs3, 000 billion on roads, UShs1, 700 billion on electricity and quite a bit on the army.
President Museveni said that government has put more efforts in the construction of roads in all parts of the country using locally generated resources. He said the roads would have a big impact on the national economy because they would serve for a long time and provide an opportunity to address other important sectors that need to be funded.
"We spend quite a bit on the army to be able to build a strong army although soldiers get low wages. Amin soldiers were well paid but had no weapons. But we said weapons first. We brought peace cheaply with most of our soldiers sleeping in Maama ingia pole. If we did not do this, we would have our country run by the United Nations,” he said, adding that peace is enabling Uganda to get more money.
"I can speak authoritatively that we have one institution that has given you exemplary service cheaply. It’s not a story, it’s not something I read in a book, I have it here on good record,” he said.
He urged the Judiciary to improvise in line with housing for the courts and proposed institutional housing for judicial service officers.
President Museveni said that the Government was fully committed to providing vehicles for all judges and Magistrates in the country and proposed that they establish a SACCO that government can facilitate. He said that the government would soon fund medical check-up for them in health facilities of their choice within the country.
HE Museveni said government will support the UShs36 billion five year ICT strategic plan to roll out a robust case management system providing for E-filing to reduce timelines and loss of files.
The Chief Justice, Hon. Justice Bart Katureebe, commended President Museveni for eliminating extra Judicial killings in the country. He however, pointed out that the judiciary has rental arrears of UShs3 billion and that the Supreme Court may be up for eviction if nothing is done.
Hon. Katureebe said with a 46% growth in the budget from UShs.63billion in 2012/13 to UShs.92 billion in 2014/15, performance also increased by 49% from 102,000 cases in 2010/11 to 152,000 cases disposed of in 2014/15.
