Plan to merge agencies leaves employees worried

Kampala. Employees in government agencies earmarked for merger or scrapping are on the tenterhooks as uncertainty over their continued employment courts more adverse ramifications.
For instance, commercial banks have reportedly started denying some of them salary loans because the financial institutions are unsure that the affected staff will keep their jobs, and if so, for how long.
Some of the employees, speaking on condition of anonymity to freely discuss in-house financial arrangements, told this newspaper that their employers are being asked to provide security guarantees in addition to letter of undertaking in support of their loans applications.
In a Tuesday rationalisation of the government agencies discourse organised by Makerere University Business School and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, matters were made worse when Public Service Permanent Secretary, Ms Catherine Musingwire, said the government re-organisation will be conducted in a phased manner over a period of three years, but failed to denominate when the countdown begins.
“Cabinet approved the plan to rationalise, but it is still in the process of working out how the rationalisation will be done,” she said.
Mr Gideon Badagawa, the executive director of the Private Sector Foundation of Uganda, said that the foot dragging by government was causing anxiety and operational paralysis in the various agencies. This, he said, is affecting productivity of employees and effectiveness of the institutions.
The Director for Development Planning at the National Planning Authority, Dr Patrick Birungi, revealed that some commercial banks are refusing to do business with the employees of the various agencies.
“Some staffs in some of these agencies cannot get salary loans because the banks are not sure that the agencies will not be collapsed. There is need to clear the uncertainty,” he said.
PS Musingwire, however, revealed that once the implementation of the rationalisation commences, the government will engage the banks to cause loans to be restructured in order to mitigate against possible financial loss.
She also revealed terminal benefits are to be paid under the terms and conditions of employment of affected staff while remuneration of their transferred colleagues will be harmonised with that of absorbing entities.
Participants endorsed the plan to streamline government operations, but called for wider consultation since some of the merger proposals are neither feasible nor practical.
“Rationalisation should have been done yesterday, but it should be done scientifically. Are we touching the wrong end of the stick when we touch agencies without touching the Parliament and the districts where people determine their salaries and allowances?” PSFU’s Badagwa said.
PS Musingwire said the appropriate recommendations is to stop creating more administrative centres because they are unaffordable.