Dennis Obbo, the Spokesperson of the Lands Ministry, says the Ministry decided to extend the working hours in response to concerns raised by their clients and local leaders.
The Lands, Housing and Urban Planning Ministry
has extended the working time of the Ministerial Zonal Offices-MZO to allow
staff to attend to more clients.
The offices have been operating between 8: 00 am to 12: 00 pm each working day. However, according to the new
guidelines, the offices will now operate from 8: 00 am to 5: 00 pm just like other
public offices.
Dennis Obbo, the Spokesperson of the Lands Ministry, says the Ministry decided to extend the working hours in response to concerns raised by their
clients and local leaders.
He explains
that the MZO employees have been closing their doors to the public and use the
time between noon and 5pm to process received documents.
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He however, says starting this month, the staff
will be required to process all the documents as they come in to decrease the
backlog and increase the number of clients they attend too.
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Several people have been spending days moving back and forth
to MZO to get services. This created a loophole, which gave an opportunity to middle
men to dupe the unsuspecting members of the public with promises of pushing
their papers.
For example it has been a tag of war at Wakiso for clients
and brokers to access the door leading to the offices of the registrar, which
has been blamed for fueling corruption at the facility.
Hajji Yahaya Ssentongo,
the Principal Land Management Officer at the Wakiso Ministerial Zonal Land
Office, says so long as the said time falls under that standard working hours
for public servants, they will definitely have to oblige.
“We have not received the circular indicating the changes but
it is within the standard working hours, we will have to adjust and adopt the
new changes,” he said.
In addition to extending the time, the ministry has also
directed that all clients visiting the MZO are handled at the reception since
there is no need for them to see the registrars.
Obbo says when the clients physically meet the registrars it
affects their output and sometimes leaves them compromised. He says that under the
new arrangement, nearly every transaction will be lodged at the reception.
He adds that they have pinned the number of time each
transaction is expected to last and put in a place a system where a client will
be notified by text message on the progress of their paper work.
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Government established the Ministerial Zonal Offices in a bid
to take services closer to the public.
The officers are found in Mbarara,
Masaka, Kampala, Jinja, Mbale, Arua, Masindi, Mukono, and Fort Portal, Lira,
Gulu and Kibaale district.
Prior to their establishment, all land transactions
were conducted at the Lands Ministry Headquarters.
