How govt will absorb staff from merged agencies

The Ministry of Public Service has embarked on the process of absorbing affected staff from the agencies that have been rationalised and merged into different ministries. 

Minister of Public Service Wilson Muruli Mukasa explained that the affected staff will be absorbed into the various public institutions while those that won’t be absorbed such as drivers and secretaries will be paid their terminal benefits. 

“Many of those people are actually going to be absorbed into the mother ministry but also those who cannot be absorbed according to the structure will go to other ministries where they are competent,” Mr Muruli said. 

The minister noted that Public Service faces staffing gaps, which will be filled by some of the staff affected by the rationalisation.

“Nobody is going to be disadvantaged because the Public Service is not 100 percent fully occupied. There are gaps, 65 percent, there are some areas where the staffing gap is 35 percent so these people with competencies will go to those positions,” he explained. 

The minister was speaking to Monitor shortly after the launch of the 43rd African Association for Public Administration and Management (AAPAM) Round Table Conference and Annual General Meeting in Kampala yesterday. 

According to the State of Human Resource 2023 report published by the Ministry of Public Service in August, a total of 295,361 government jobs are unfilled. Hospitals and public universities have some of the highest staffing gaps at 71 and 69 percent, respectively. The report indicated that three of every 10 positions in public universities remained unfilled in 2023. 

However, this staffing gap was partly blamed on a two-year ban on recruitment for all ministries, departments and agencies and local governments, pending a comprehensive audit of the payroll. A total of 219 employees from 21 government agencies lost their jobs on September 30 as the Rationalisation of Agencies and Public Expenditure (RAPEX) policy took effect. 

Mr Muruli supported the rationalisation of agencies, saying it will remove redundancies, overlaps and areas where the government has spent money and achieved little. 

In September Ms Allen Kakama, the commissioner of management services at the Ministry of Public Service, told Daily Monitor that Shs29.1 billion has been set aside for compensation of the first batch of employees from 21 agencies. 

The second phase of rationalisation will occur in December and more employees are expected to be affected.

Yesterday, Ms Lucy Nakyobe, the head of Public Service/Secretary to Cabinet, said AAPAM, which will take place in Uganda from November 26-29, aims at promoting research and innovation, addressing social economic and environmental challenges as well as enhancing policy development. The conference is expected to attract more than 700 delegates from across Africa.