The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Chairman Board Junjura: Dr Okello mentored us. His best attribute was humility. We thank him for serving humanity with such humbleness.
COMMENT | LYDIA MIREMBE | When the Uganda Retirement Benefits Regulatory Authority (URBRA) was established in 2011, by an Act of Parliament, operationalizing it was like an experiment. There was nothing to work with apart from the URBRA Act, 2011. No premises; no staff; no budget. A Board of Directors was appointed by then Minister of Finance, Ms Maria Kiwanuka to get on with the job. One of the Directors of URBRA’s inaugural Board was Dr. Eng. Robert Peter Macomodo Okello.
He was an eminent Ugandan, who had served in different positions at international, continental and national level, in an illustrious career that started back in 1978.
He had served as the Non-Executive Director at Tropical Bank, Uganda; Chairman Board of Directors, Uganda Industrial Research Institute; NEPAD Director, Division of Regional Integration in Africa; Director for Southern Africa United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), Addis-Ababa.
Dr Okello also served as a Technical Advisor at United Nations Economic Commission for Africa; Chief Technical Advisor of the United Nations Transport and Communications Decade in Africa; Staff Manager, American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T); and Operations Research Analyst, Kennecott Copper Company.
With such a wealth of experience, Dr Okello joined the inaugural Board of URBRA, and worked with other members to set up and operationalize the Authority. For ten years he served on URBRA’s Board (2012-2022) and Chaired the Audit & Risk Management Committee. Dr Okello demonstrated unwavering commitment, and professionalism. He made no secret of his desire to see the authority grow into an independent, respectable and reputable institution. He believed in collaborating with and learning from those institutions that had existed before URBRA.
In an interview during the celebration of URBRA’s tenth anniversary in October 2022, Dr Okello said, “setting up an institution is not easy. You need a reference point. Where I come from, people learn from others. You see what they are doing if not to copy them, at least to avoid their mistakes. For our sector we learnt a lot from others like Kenya, India, Chile, Nigeria, Ghana. We should therefore apply those lessons.”
Speaking of learning, Dr Okello believed that despite the economic challenges, Ugandans could improve their saving culture, by observing and applying the approaches that other economies had applied to emancipate their populations from poverty. He decried the fact that Uganda was still a predominantly subsistence economy dominated by the informal sector, which made it difficult to expand coverage of the retirement benefits sector. But he also observed that other countries like Kenya and Nigeria had managed to expand their sectors by introducing umbrella schemes.
“Let us look at Nigeria and Kenya who introduced umbrella schemes to expand the bases of participants. The approach worked in Kenya; it will work for us. In some of the Asian counties, when they were starting out as we are, it was by law to save a percentage of your earnings. In this country, if it was possible to make it a law for everyone to save, that would be great,” Dr Okello said.
Among URBRA’s achievements, Dr Okello especially celebrated the establishment of order in the retirement benefits sector. “In the past, different organizations established and operated disparate pension schemes ranging from public service, to NSSF, with different aspects of the scheme being ran by various companies. URBRA brought order and instituted regulations and guidelines on how things should be done. This has led to sector growth,” he said.
Thus, when news of Dr Okello’s demise reached the URBRA fraternity on 4th October, many could not hold back their praise and admiration for a man who served the institution with unmatched dedication, commitment and integrity to the very end of his ten-year tenure.
Chairman Board of Directors, Hon Julius Bigirwa Junjura said, “Dr Okello mentored us. His best attribute was humility. We thank him for serving humanity with such humbleness.”
Acting CEO, Ms Rita Nansasi said, “He was a great inspiration, and motivated everyone to work with professionalism,dedication, integrity, paying attention to quality rather than quantity.”
Former Board Member, Hon. Jane Pachuto re-echoed Hon Junjura’s sentiments saying, “Dr Okello was defined by humility and a good heart for everyone. He wished everyone well, and I implore all leaders to emulate him.”
Mr Martin Anthony Nsubuga, who also worked closely with Dr Okello said, “his eye for detail inspired the Board and Management of URBRA to shun mediocrity; he suffered no slip-ups and made no excuses for less-than-perfect work. A young institution like URBRA needed that kind of tough love to grow into the admirable institution we see today. We thank him most sincerely and believe that his legacy will carry on for generations to come.”
Even though death has robbed URBRA of a committed leader and friend, Dr Okello’s passing should be marked with renewed vigour to address the challenges that he so wished URBRA would surmount – expand sector coverage; work to make URBRA a respected sector regulator; work collaboratively with other like IRA CMA, academia and research institutions; and never stop learning from those that have succeeded. As he so humorously said in one of the interviews I did with him, “countries in Europe and American have well-established pension and social security systems. Several African countries like South Africa and Botswana also have mature pension systems. If others did it, why can’t we did it?”
May His soul rest in eternal peace.
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Lydia Mirembe is the Manager, Corporate and Public Affairs, Uganda Retirement Benefits Regulatory Authority (URBRA)
