By John V Sserwaniko
Following our Monday story regarding the jobs’ fight at National Identification & Registration Authority (NIRA), dozens of aggrieved young people have rang and inboxed us sharing very traumatic experiences. The situation at the Kololo-based ID Registration Authority has become so hopeless that one marginalized recruit Esau Turyatunga of Kambuga Sub County Kanungu district says “I vowed never to seek government jobs in my entire life again because of the bitter lesson I was taught by NIRA and their recruitment agency called Profiles International.” In a long email, which we are reproducing as part of this story, Turyatunga shares his very traumatic experiences as he tried to get employment with NIRA. He says his experience is shared by many young people many of whom say are being victimized and herded out of NIRA in order to create vacancies for close to 300 young NRM cadres who sometime back graduated from Kyankwanzi with a promise to be given jobs at NIRA. One of these cadres has previously bragged to friends thus: “I must get the job in NIRA because we were assured during training that NIRA is one place that is ours as cadres and we shall work there whether we sit/pass interviews or not.” It’s this impunity and abuse of processes that Speaker Rebecca Kadaga (who was last week formally petitioned by hundreds of these marginalized young people who too are supporters of NRM and the President) has vowed to investigate and recommend punitive action against the authorities at NIRA. Some of these cadres are guys who defected from Amama Mbabazi’s Go-Forward and were promised employment after elections.
KYANKWANZI CADRES
Whereas NIRA officials vehemently denied politicizing recruitment and attributed the current HR problems to the Finance Ministry which cut their wage bill from Shs25bn to mere Shs15bn (see details in our Monday story titled FRESH WAR ERUPTS AT NIRA OVER JOBS), the more than 100 aggrieved Enrollment/ID Issuance Officers based at District level maintained that they have been maliciously mistreated. “How do you say it’s a money scarcity problem when the very inexperienced and underqualified guys you have just recruited will each earn Shs2.7m which we have never earned?” ranted one of the aggrieved NIRA employees as he shared with us an appointment letter for one of the newly recruited Assistant Registration Officers. “We [Issuance/Enrollment Officers] are the ones who trained them [Assistant Registration Officers] and we have more qualifications and experience on the job than them. We are age mates but we are being edged out to give way to them. Those guys in NIRA top management aren’t being honest at all. They tricked us to train these guys saying they are going to work with us and as soon as we were through with that, they sent letters asking us to leave on January 31st. What did we do to deserve such treatment? If it’s about being NRM, we are also NRM. In fact more NRM than some of these people who opportunistically rejoined Mzee from Go-forward. We went through a lot of political vetting under Aronda in 2014 otherwise we couldn’t be engaged from the very start if we were saboteurs from the opposition.” Many of the aggrieved NIRA recruits preferred anonymity fearing that speaking on record could jeopardize the civil case they have resolved to contract city lawyer Ladislaus Rwakafuzi to file on their behalf in the High Court protesting wrongful dismissal. “They were smart and didn’t give us appointment letters for the over 4 years we worked but the law is very clear after 6 months of work, an employment contract will constructively clearly exist and there is no way they are going to deny knowing us in court. By the way we were terminated even without notice and they even didn’t write to us directly. They wrote to the District Registration Officers (DROs) asking them to tell us to hand over. All this shows bad faith and we tried seeking audience to seek explanation and they dodged us,” ranted another aggrieved young man adding that they recently confided in NIRA Board Chairman Prof Peter Kasenene sharing their plight. “He told us he was also very frustrated with NITA management and wants to resign to protect his name. He says he is now an old man and can’t continue shepherding a ship like NIRA that is clearly going to soil his image.” We tried calling his phone but had by press time not succeeded speaking to Prof Kasenene to verify this narrative about his alleged frustration with mismanagement of the HR function at NIRA.
GOING TO KADAGA:
The aggrieved young men want Parliament to interrogate NIRA bosses regarding why the much pampered newly recruited Assistant Registration Officers (AROs) are being made to earn Shs2.5m per month in salary when the District IT Officers (DITOs) who ordinarily are their immediate supervisors are earning Shs1.5m in gross salary which comes to around Shs900,000 per month after taxes. “They are clearly telling everybody else that you don’t matter because you aren’t part of this Kyankwanzi group. What do you expect the supervisor [DITO] to do about his supposed subordinate [AROs] who earns more than him and has a 5 year contract which he himself doesn’t have? How do you expect the DITO to supervise the ARO who keeps bragging openly that we are here to own NIRA because we came through Kyankwanzi on order from above? All that would be okay but why should cadres be discriminated if that is now the yard stick to get good pay and good contract with NIRA? We are all cadres with same blood and Parliament must help us to ensure equity prevails at NIRA,” ranted one of the aggrieved young men who was part of the delegation comprising of regional leaders that last week met the Speaker.
“The Speaker was shocked and said we must reverse this because we are the ones who appropriate money for NIRA and the accounting officer [Judith Obitre Gama who sources said isn’t in charge anymore] will have to answer for all these anomalies in the recruitment,” Kadaga was quoted as re-assuring the group whose petition has since been assigned to the outspoken Buhweju County MP Francis Mwijukye to process and properly present it before Parliament for discussion, debate and resolution. We were unable to speak to Mwijukye as he never took any of our phone calls but Parliamentary sources confirmed he is indeed working on the petition in conjunction with the office of the Speaker. For the NIRA side, the officials were unwilling to speak on record claiming the matter is very sensitive. There are also concerns that these new cadre officers are joining NIRA with many other benefits which their predecessors in service only fantasized about. For comments, call/text/whatsapp us on 0703164755!
ESAU TURYATUNGA’S TRAUMATIC ORDEAL
*Why I made a decision never to search for a Government Job in My Country Uganda until the current regime is worked on*
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Dear Mulengera News,
My name is Esau Turyatunga I come from Nyarutojo parish Kambuga Sub County in Kanungu District and I live in Kampala.
Sometime back in 2016 after the General elections around June 2016, Government through NIRA advertised for jobs and I applied for a position of *ASSISTANT REGISTRATION OFFICER – DISTRICT*
I hope you know well how unemployment is a big macroeconomic challenge in Uganda. I competed with thousands and I knew it when I was submitting in my application/CV but my mind kept telling me that I can make it to the finals and win.
Good enough I was shortlisted and invited for a series of Interviews over the same job. I did my first interview at Kololo SSS which was Written Technical Test/Aptitude (50 questions taking 50Marks and 50Minutes) and I am sure that I passed it because the Human Resource firm (Profiles International Ug Ltd – PIUL) which Government/NIRA had hired to recruit on its behalf texted me, e-mailed me and even gave me a phone call inviting me for Oral interview at their offices in Kamuhokya located on Old Kira road.
The process of recruitment finished almost a year and I thought that maybe NIRA/PIUL had cancelled the exercise. To my surprise, it was around early October that I again received a call from PIUL inviting me for another oral interview over the same position. I went to Mackinon Suites Nakasero where the Interview was and I sat before the panel of Six comprised of Senior managers from NIRA Head Office and Profiles International (Human Resource Consultants). Mr Karuhanga Moses who doubles as Head Procurement at NIRA was chairing that panel. To the best of my knowledge, I satisfactorily convinced that panel and from there, I was given a bio data form to fill which ISO used for background check and vetting. My parents who live in Kambuga Kanungu gave me a call telling me how DISO and GISO were at our home telling them how Government wanted to give me a job. My parents are in local leadership and I was told that a report was made about me and finally I was vetted. I remained optimistic after hearing that from my parents.
*Shock!*
To my surprise, around 10th January 2018, I was surprised after meeting some boy from Kanungu called Eliab whom I never met anywhere on the interviews doing training at UBOS /Statistics House over the job I was hoping to get.
Later alone I was informed that some of us whom PIUL/NIRA had chosen as best suitors for the job were deleted from the final vetted list and NRM Secretariat under coordination of a one Mafabi dumped there its “mbu NRM cadres.”
To me it was a sign of rotten institutionalism in the Country, lack of patriotism and nationalism coupled with lack of professionalism and poor ethical conduct among many people. It sounds as if NIRA is annex to State House. Personally I was left in much depression and I painfully absorbed that fact that my name was just erased from the list of successful candidates who were vetted waiting deployment.
I told whoever cared to listen to my story and I thought that they could be of help. Among the people I told was Hon James Kaberuka, Hon Capt Evelyn Asiimwe, Hon Dr Chris Baryomunsi, State Minister for Internal Affairs, Mr Nelson Twebaze Bemanya who doubles as Board member to HR on NIRA Board and so on. They all promised to be of help but I reached at a point and realized that my life is not synonymous with NIRA. I have never seen the most disorganized and corrupt government entity like NIRA.
These are some of the reasons that make me to strongly agree with US President Donald Trump that we are living in a Shithole.
*Why am I telling you all these:*
*1.*t is because Government/Taxpayers lost a lot of money in hiring a human resource firm (PIUL) which did its work but later became useless. Why all the waste?
*2*. The budget of NIRA should be cut further to less than a half of what it receives today.
*3*.Leader of Government Business should tell Ugandans whether NIRA is annex to State House
Lastly a saying goes that when one door closes, God opens another one. I waited for that job for a long time and it was such a painful experience only my side with NIRA. I know many were affected because of rotten institutionalism in the Country. However when one goes to School, it is always an open cheque! I moved forward from lamentations and deleted NIRA and NRM from my mind. I later realized that it wasn’t good to apply for a job in the most disorganized and corrupt Government Institution like NIRA.
Thank you. I remain Esau Turyatunga
For comments, call/text/whatsapp us on 0703164755!
