Paul Mukungu, the Luweero Town Council LC 3 Chairperson, says government has been allocating funds for capacity building and it will be unfortunate for a serving officer to lose job over lack of academic qualifications.
Scores of civil servants in Luweero district are likely to lose jobs following the adoption of the customized staff structure in the 2017/18 financial year. The staff will lose their jobs following the abolition of their positions by the Public Service Ministry.
Some of the affected positions include that of the Assistant Community Development Officers, Examiner of accounts and Assistant Procurement officer among others. The customized staff structure also raises the academic qualification of the town agents and parish chiefs from Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education to a diploma.
Bernard Okello, the Senior Human Resource Officer Luweero District, says some positions were abolished by the government to address redundancy, overhead costs and improve service delivery. He however, says staff who have upgraded their academic qualifications stand a chance of being redeployed to other positions where there are vacancies.
Okello says even the other civil servants who have remained in their positions, need to prove their competence before District Service Commission retains them. In his June 28th, 2017 letter, the Luweero District Deputy Chief Administrative Officer, Christopher James Oketayot, directs all civil servants in the district to submit copies of the application forms they used while joining service, first appointment letter, letter of confirmation, certified copies of transcripts and appraisal forms.
The staff have up to July 15th, 2017 to submit the information to the District Service Commission for re-validation, retention or termination basing on recommendation from the commission. The district has formed a staff restructuring implementation committee led by the Chief Administrative Officer, Eustace Gakwandi to oversee and advise the District Service Commission to ensure that the exercise is completed before September, 2017.
The Public Service Ministry has also approved the creation of the Trade, Industry and Economic Development Department with officers that include commercial and tourism officers. The Ministry has also approved the recruitment of two information technology officers, finance, probation and welfare and assistant forestry officer among others.
On Monday this week all departmental heads, Sub county chiefs and town clerks were briefed about the changes and asked to prepare the staff about the restructuring exercise. None of the affected staff was willing to comment, saying they are yet to receive official communication about their fate.
Paul Mukungu, the Luweero Town Council LC 3 Chairperson, says government has been allocating funds for capacity building and it will be unfortunate for a serving officer to lose job over lack of academic qualifications.
He is however skeptical the changes will improve service delivery unless government addresses key issues like additional funding, corruption and lack of supervision, which affect service delivery.
Government conducts restructuring every ten years. The last restricting exercise was done in 2005.
