34 member unions that subscribe to the National Organization of Trade Unions (NOTU) have accused their top leadership of deliberately managing the Union as their private business.
These accused the NOTU Chairperson Usher Wilson, Owere, and his Secretary General Peter Werikhe who is also the MP for Bubulo west of mismanaging the funds which have made the union run bankrupt.
“This mismanagement has led to the withdrawal of the funders like the LO Norway who had funded us for 30 years but withdrew their support last year after conducting an independent audit,” Robert Matukhu Wanzusi, the Secretary general of the National Union of Infrastructural Civil Works and woodworkers told reporters.
In a report titled; NOTU What Went Wrong, released on Monday in Kampala, the 34-member unions that had been represented by 42 members highlighted some of the failures that are being registered by the top brass.
“There is fraudulent procurement and disposal of NOTU Assets by the leaders, everything has been individualized, the top leadership do not want to be blamed, there is high impunity and mismanagement of our funds,” the report reads in part.
The report which was released in the absence of the accused persons pinned Owere, Werikhe, and the top brass for driving the Union in a managerial manner.
“The top brass is leading us in the way they want, no consultations, they are deciding for us, and as members, we shall not allow it,” Wanzusi, who was the Committee Chairperson said.
The Report also pinned Werikhe for illegally occupying the Office of the Secretary-General yet he occupies another political seat (MP Bubulo West) and in partisan politics.
“According to our Constitution, Werikhe should step down, and the union choose a substantive person who will handle because he got involved in the partisan politics and besides he is an MP yet the Union needs a full-time secretary general,” Wanzusi said
Aziz Kirya, the secretary for the union of allied workers wondered why a few people can choose to decide the fate of millions of workers in a fraudulent manner.
“We shall not allow and if they fail to dialogue, we are going to seek Court redress, these are matters of workers, not individuals,” he said
Marion Tunde the former Workers MP and a member of the Union called for a reconciliation through dialogue that should be organized by the accused leadership.
“And here we shall be able to adopt and discuss the way forward from the report, especially looking at the recommendations,”
Like Tunde, Wanzusi said this is the only solution but wondered why the general Council meeting which is supposed to sit twice a year has since 2018 sited only once and that was June this year in Masaka.
“We adopted the Committee which has conducted this study but the top leadership later started fighting us,” he said
Efforts to get a comment from Werikhe over the members’ woos were futile as he did not pick up our repeated phone calls.
Owere on his side however declined to comment on the matter and said that he will do so after getting the Report.
“They will present the same Report on October 4, in a meeting I have organized and that is when I will comment on it,” he said
