By Otim Nape
The efforts by Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda to have Julius Victor Nkeramihigo to be included on the list of Ugandan civil servants to be interviewed for the 4 vacant Under Secretary positions has sparked chaos and anxiety among top civil servants and technocrats. We currently have at least four (4) Under Secretary positions in the different ministries that are vacant. These include Energy, Public Service and Elioda Tumwesigye’s newly created ministry of Science & Technology. And the recruitment process has been on by Public Service Commission to urgently fill them.
It has lasted at least two months now and the Nkeramihigo saga has created even more complications. And here is why. Sometime in May 2015, he wrote to the PS Ministry of the Presidency Deborah Katuramu who is responsible for the appointment, deployment and promotion of Under Secretaries and other civil service administrative cadres, applying for leave without pay for 5 years. He then relocated to Arusha where he got a 5 year contract to work at the EAC Secretariat. He went to serve there as Principal Administrative Officer at the EAC Secretariat.
Adah Muwanga who was working as Ag. PS public service ministry worked with Deborah Katuramu (PS Presidency) and granted Nkeramihigo’s request. He would only return to the Ugandan public service at expiry of 5 years. Nkeramihigo left when he was Principal Administrative Secretary and that is the position at which he was to remain and wasn’t eligible for promotion for as long as he was away under his leave without pay arrangement.
In April 2016, the office of the President was notified by Public Service of existence of vacant positions for Under Secretary and when this was internally advertised, Nkeramihigo ironically asked to terminate his leave and apply, sit for the interviews and qualify for promotion from PAS to Under Secretary. Its said even Pius Bigirimana, his former supervisor at OPM, had fallen out with Nkeramihigo (once his blue eyed boy) and even withdrew his prior recommendation for him showing he was fit for promotion. Sources say technocrats from Kigezi and Kisoro became divided over the bitter fallout between Bigirimana and Nkeramihigo who is another illustrious son of Kisoro. Those powerful civil servants who favoured Bigirimana argued that Nkeramihigo, who we tried but failed to talk to for all these weeks, couldn’t be trusted anymore if he could turn against Bigirimana who years ago mentored him and requested for his transfer from MoH to OPM. Its not clear why they bitterly fellout to the extent that Bigirimana even withdrew the recommendation he had given earlier endorsing Nkeramihigo.
To overcome what they considered the powerful invisible hand of Bigirimana, Nkeramihigo’s supporters amongst the Kisoro/Kabale community approached Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda and lobbied him. And acting on incorrect information that reliable sources say was even incomplete, Rugunda weighed in requiring Katuramu and other officers concerned to ensure Nkeramihigo isn’t frustrated but gets the job of Under Secretary in the ongoing highly contested and disputed recruitment process.
However, reliable sources say Katuramu vowed to defy Rugunda on grounds that his directive was illegal and could in future put her and other responsible officers in trouble with the IGG in case any of the Nkeramihigo competitors petitioned against this procedural impropriety and unfairness. Some have even threatened to challenge the process in court by way of Judicial Review application.
As the deadline for the applications for the Under Secretary jobs drew near, phone calls increased from the OPM building to Katuramu’s next door. But the elderly technocrat stood her ground and even offered to put her objections in writing. Her point was twofold; firstly there was no written proof that the much-loathed Nkeramihigo had properly resigned his job as PAO at EAC Secretariat and secondly, his application for the U/S promotional interviews was being smuggled in late after other applicants had started the process. To the defiant Katuramu, this was clearly irregular and untenable in law. She maintained that Nkeramihigo was clearly time-barred by the time he submitted his application to join the race for the U/S jobs.
MUSINGWIRE NOT CLEAN
This is where the PS Public Service Ministry Catherine Musingwire, who yesterday declined discussing this matter with this news website in a phone interview, has been indicted for being a deeply interested party in the Nkeramihigo saga.
Long after the submission of applications had closed, Musingwire whose husband works as Secretary in the Public Service Commission, got for Nkeramihigo retrospective approval curiously showing that the ministry of public service had received and approved his request for termination of his leave without pay that had been granted to him in April 2015. Reliable sources say that Musingwire, who has turned out to be very vindictive in her role as PS at Wandegeya for the last two years, has failed so far to work with three Under Secretaries (a one Mugunga and Lynette Bagonza) and is now deceptively thinking Nkeramihigo is the only perfect civil servant with whom she can fight corruption which she believes is once again becoming rampant at the Wandegeya-based Ministry famous for the pension scandal. Each time she has been pestered by lobbyists claiming to come from Rugunda’s place, Katuramu has dully been resisting all manner of pressure maintaining that Nkeramihigo was improperly shortlisted because the due process (which is a very critical component of recruitment) wasn’t properly followed. She maintains that merely following and complying with political orders from above, just for purposes of being politically correct, won’t be a defense for her in future when she faces investigations and eventually prosecution by the incorruptible IGG Irene Mulyagonja.
The process is going to prove even more complicated for Nkeramihigo’s backers because this website is reliably informed that the recently deported diplomat Dickson Ogwang from our mission in Washington has also been promised by the President and State House to be considered for one of the 4 vacant U/S positions. We can confirm that Ogwang’s powerful lobbyists, mostly from the political class, have been relentlessly pleading with the President not to forget their man. As shown in her strongly worded letter hereby reproduced as part of this story, Katuramu eloquently states her four reasons why she won’t relent in objecting to Nkeramihigo’s controversial recruitment/promotion in the service to the rank of Under Secretary. Yet she isn’t the only one resisting political pressure to reject Nkeramihigo.
There are many other top technocrats close to this recruitment process including Salome Nyamungu who has offered to resign her job as Director Inspection & Quality Assurance at Public Service ministry protesting Nkeramihigo’s procedurally improper recruitment/promotion to the rank of Under Secretary. We have tried to speak to Prime Minister Rugunda for two weeks in vain. All our phone calls have gone unanswered and the same applied to our repeated text/WhatsApp messages to him. Watch out for more updates on this recruitment scandal including Salome Nyamungu’s letter 4 page letter strongly backing Katuramu’s principled stand against procedural impropriety.
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