Court orders KCCA to pay Lord Mayor Shs600m salary arrears

By Ruth Anderah.

High court judge Andrew Bashaijja has ordered the minister in-charge of Kampala city Betty Kamya, KCCA and the Attorney General to pay over 600 million shillings to the Lord Mayor Elias Lukwago being his accumulated salary emoluments and damages for wrongfully withholding it since 2013.

The accumulated monies are to cover the period between December 2013 and May 2016 which KCCA had refused to remit to Lukwago under the pretext that during that period, he was out of office having been impeached by Councillors.

In his ruling Justice Bashaijja noted that the impeachment was invalidated by several court orders issued between December 2013 to January 2014 and therefore Lukwago was acknowledged to be rightfully occupying office for the contentious 30 months.

Apart from his salary arrears of 563.4 million shillings, justice Bashaijja has further added Lukwago another 100 million shillings being damages for the gross inconvenience, psychological torture, denial of livelihood, mental anguish and for frustrations he has suffered for long time whenever he tried to enforce his rights.

Last year Lukwago sued the Attorney General, KCCA executive director Jennifer Musisi , the Kampala Minister and the Authority itself for orders that court compels them to pay his salary arrears as the continued refusal to pay it without any justifiable reason is unlawful.

Written by David Kugonza