By Mulengera Reporters
At the beginning of this year, the Public Service Commission commenced processes to recruit four Commissioners HR Management to head/handle personnel issues at key government Ministries. A total of 18 seasoned HR practitioners already inside the system saw this as an opportunity to achieve career progression and they applied.
Ironically, majority of them passed and scored almost same marks. They each scored over 85% and more. Whoever sat for the interviews walked away convinced that this year’s competence exams had been the easiest ever. They counted themselves in, only to be disappointed when the results showed it was someone else and not them.
There was anxiety as the PSC got stuck on who to recruit and who to leave out. That’s how the IG office was dragged into the melee. The Inspectorate was bombarded with petitions claiming the competence exams had been leaked to some candidates. Whoever got the leak and accessed the questions in advance thought no one else had.
The IGG staff were kept busy as senior HR managers walked into their premises ready to give competence exams leakages information-implicating their competitors. The authorities at Farmers House-based PSC decided to involve the Ministry of Public Service PS Catherine Musingwire Birakwate for guidance.
The powerful PS’s intervention resulted into disciplinary action being taken against at least four HR practitioners inside the government Ministries. These included Ms Harriet Akello who, as a way of sanctioning, was kicked out of the Lands Ministry, a thing that unanimously excited the political leaders and the Ministers there including Persis Namuganza, Judith Nabakooba and Harriet Ntabaazi. The outgoing PS tried to shield her but she was overwhelmed and Harriet Akello had to go as had been decreed by Catherine Musingwire.
On Wednesday 4th November, things became even more escalated when the IGG Aisha Naluzze Batala outed her four-page directive, guiding on the HR Commissioners’ recruitment. The IGG rejected whistle blower claims alleging irregularities in HR Commissioners’ recruitment since there is “nothing wrong with the PSC members constituting themselves into two interview panels” as was done in this case.
In what left the keenly-interested whistle blowers with an egg on their face, the IGG established that this was in line with the PSC long held practice of members being constituted into different Boards ‘for the effective conduct of [the Commission] business.’
IGG Aisha Butala Naluzze’s letter ends with vacation of the written orders of 8th and 27th July which the Inspectorate had issued halting the recruitment process for the four Commissioners for HR Management to be deployed at government Ministries. The PSC is now set to finalize the recruitment of the best rated four out of the 20 HR candidates who had applied. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
