Now USA has increased its minimum wage to $10/Hr, that's about UGX36,000... And in 8Hrs an average American will be earning about UGX288,000 and in a month UGX 6,336,000, without weekends and overtime.
Our current leader says if the government puts a minimum wage on the Labour provided by Ugandan citizens then it'll discourage investors as the cost of operating business in Uganda will be high.
Question is, which benefits out-weigh the others? Let's look at a few of them down here:-
1) With a minimum wage
- High labour efficiency
- Evenly distributed wealth
- No exploitation or modern slavery
- Improve quality of labour; as people can afford education with good earnings.
- Improve standards of living
- Bigger tax base
- Rapid development
- Improved and enlarged market base
- Income inequality gap is reduced
- Increased number of investors and medium business people
- Bla bla bla
2) Without a minimum wage
- All the above are not there or are still staggering... and the opposite of each is true.
- Increased number of investors, better known as exploiters
- Everything good about the lack of it is arguably negative...
Now, why do you think our government is still failing to give it's citizens an opportunity to better and respect their lives through a minimum wage? The answers are simple; our government encourages corruption, exploitation of its citizens and natural resources and wants to generally keep it's citizens poor...
If the business of an investor makes money, as many of them do, and they're taking it all without giving citizens what they deserve, is Uganda benefiting when the investors takes a share of the Ugandan government money back to his home country? No wonder Bank of Uganda is struggling with maintaining the value of the Ugandan shilling against the dollar. And please don't think am racist or that i hate investors, I love my country as much, or even more than the investors love theirs.
Note that our unemployment levels amid all this exploitation is 64% (CCTV) and underemployment is I guess 99.4%.
Amb. Boaz Mbaya, Nairobi - Kenya says everyone in Uganda is looking forward for a change.
If you think otherwise let me or better us, know your opinion.
