Public Service highlights need to align job requirements with oil sector needs

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The Public Service Commission has said there is a need to harmonise its job requirements and the needs of nascent industries like oil and gas in the country.

The call was made by the Permanent Secretary of the Commission, Dr. John Geoffrey Mbabazi, during a three-day field visit to oil installations in the Albertine graben in Bunyoro sub-region.

Members of the Public Service Commission and staff of Petroleum Authority of Uganda pose for a group photo at Kabalega International Airport site during the three-day working visit in the Albertine graben. (Photo by Benon Ojiambo)

During the visit, the Commission conducted a human resource audit in the Albertine oil region in order to fast-track activities as the country gears up for commercial oil production.

“As the commission, our job requirements should take into consideration the needs of the nascent industries like oil and gas,” Mbabazi said.

The Public Service Commission is a recruiting agency of the Government, and Mbabazi explained that the visit was aimed at identifying any gaps that could exist in the current labour pool.

The oil and gas, under the extractives sector, is one of four segments that the government is banking on to drive Uganda’s economy to $500b over the next 15 years.

Since the discovery of the natural resource’s commercial deposits in 2006, oil and gas has been a major source of foreign direct investments to the country.

As such, Mbabazi argues that it’s crucial that the country takes appropriate steps that would end up with having the requisite human resource to take the sector forward.

Members of the Public Service Commission and staff of Petroleum Authority of Uganda pose for a group photo at one of the oil rigs during the three-day working visit in the Albertine graben. (Photo by Benon Ojiambo)

“One of the things we have identified is the need for training, though I know that there is the Petroleum Institute in Kigumba, universities and tertiary institutions that are training technicians for the sector,” he said in a statement.

He acknowledged that the Government took this strategic effort to ensure that there is sufficient human resource capacity that is expected to manage the resource even in the absence of foreign professionals whom the country has relied on in the sector development’s formative stages.

According to Seith Muhumuza, the stakeholder management manager at the Petroleum Authority of Uganda, 95 percent of the workers across the sector are Ugandans, both skilled and semi-skilled.