Africa-Press – Uganda. Leaders in Lira District and the city have tasked the government to address the acute shortage of staff in both administrative units, saying it has crippled service delivery.
This has prompted parents to contribute money to hire teachers in government-aided schools.
The ban on recruitment of new staff in the last financial year, and the withdrawal of more than Shs4.9 billion for recruitment of more staff and replacement of others in the district has escalated the crisis.
Dr Bernard Otucu, the city health officer, said the staffing level in their department stands at only 44 percent against 75 percent as recommended by the Ministry of Health.
“It tells you how badly we are operating. I am the only person substantially appointed in the health department. The others are in acting positions,” he told on Monday.
Dr Otucu wondered why the government cannot get enough money for the wage bill to significantly increase the capacity of the health department .
“I have been in touch with the office of the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Health and told them that we desperately need to improve our city staffing structure for health,” he said.
In the education department, Lira City Council has only 759 primary school teachers on payroll who serve more than 50,000 learners.
The education officer, Mr Jasper Abura, said according to the Ministry of Education guidelines, the teacher to pupil ratio is 1:53.
“So, if you calculate with the enrollment we have, we have more than 50,000 learners. That means we need more than 1,000 teachers,” Mr Abura said.
He said as a result, teachers are burdened with the heavy workload, which has led to poor performance.
“When you give a teacher Primary One, Two, Three, and Four classes, that is overload. You find that a teacher who is supposed to be in Primary One class is at the same time supposed to be in Primary Five, hence colliding with the timetable. This leads to poor performance,” Mr Abura said.
He said although the ban on recruitment of new staff has not yet been lifted, they have been given a window to recruit on replacement basis.
“Based on this, we are only supposed to recruit a number which we have within the financial year. This means that if we are to do recruitment, we should only recruit those who have left from July up to date,” he added.
Mr Geoffrey Okaka, the chief administrative officer, said the challenge cuts across the district.
He said many civil servants in Lira have been asked to multi-task to help with more work.
“Our response to clients is poor because the officers are few. The few who are overworked and stressed, making the quality of the services poor,” Mr Okaka said.
“For example, if three officers were supposed to be in one department to attend to people but there is only one or two, it means the quality of the service is also not good. People take longer to wait for the services. Something which should have taken a shorter time ends up taking three or four hours,” he added.
Source: Monitor
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