Brig. Kulayigye appeals to soldiers to endure little pay

The UPDF spokesperson Brig Gen Felix Kulayigye has appealed to his lower ranking soldiers to endure with the small payments as he says nobody began with a higher rank in the army.

Kulayigye was responding to questions raised by ex NBS journalist, Solomon Serwanjja who is now the Executive Director of the African Institute for Investigative Journalism.

The duo recently had a wide-ranging conversation with Gen. Kulayigye, who is the spokesperson of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF).


During the interview, Serwanjja asked him if the army cares about the mental health of junior officers.

Before responding to the question, Brig. Gen. Felix Kulayigye offered some background story.

“You know you are talking to me as if I started as a General,” he started.

“I was a private soldier, earning Shs1,945 per month. I had a wife, when I would visit her in Iganga, she would be the one to give me transport back.”

According to his Wikipedia entry, the army spokesman is married to Justine Bagonza.

The salary debate comes weeks after a disgruntled UPDF soldier Pte. Wilson Sabiiti shot dead his principal also junior labour Minister Rtd. Col. Charles Okello Engola. In the days that followed, PC Ivan Wabwire also shot and killed Uttam Bhandari an Indian money lender with whom they had an altercation over a UGX 2.1m loan. As if that was not all, another civil servant who is a driver in the judiciary threatened to ram the vehicle of his principal into a trailer in protest of a poor pay of UGX 200,000.