By Flavia Ajok
The clergy in the Anglican church in Masindi district want government to consider them to benefit from the Parish Development Model program.
Led by the Bishop of the Masindi Kitara Diocese, Rt. Rev.George Wiliam Kagangaki, the clergy have told officials from Uganda Retirement Benefits Regulatory Authority (URBRA) revealed that currently they are not beneficiaries of the PDM program due to their nature of work which calls for transfers from one place to another yet PM requires permanent parish residents.
Bishop Kasangaki has asked URBRA to provide a model scheme benefiting their mode of saving for retirement since their contributions come from the shepherds as donation and not for individual contributions.
Ronnah Ninsima, the URBRA board member who led the URBRA delegation promised to report their concerns to the Prime Minister RT. Hon. Robinah Nabbanja who is the head of government business in parliament.
Ninsima says the URBRA team is in Bunyoro region conducting public education on the importance of saving for retirement and engage major stakeholders in different sectors.
Hajji Hassan Nakabaale, the director cooperate affairs at URBRA informed the meeting that they are also conducting a pre-retirement seminar for public servants who are left with only five to retire to learn how to prepare for retirement and how to conduct themselves in retirement.
Emmanuel Awio, the deputy CAO Masindi district expressed gratitude to URBRA for the timely intervention of preparing the staff for retirement and for the pre-retirement seminars.
The team later visited Kinyara Sugar Limited where officials at the sugar producing company asked URBRA to revise the mortgage policy to allow licensed custodians to access members of the scheme who want house mortgages.
