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KAMPALA - A total of 695 personnel with the Uganda Police Force are unverified.

As a result, Police authorities on Wednesday, March 12, 2024, directed unit commanders of the affected personnel to get validated.

“Following the release of the report of the payroll audit by office of Auditor General, 695 personnel were reported as unverified. Unit commanders are required to access the list of affected personnel on the police website and inform the affected personnel under your respective commands to report at the National Archives and Records Centre (NARC) to be validated,” Police Undersecretary, Aggrey Wunyi, said in a statement.

He said affected personnel must carry along the following:

• Introductory letter signed by the DPC

• a valid employee identity card

• original and photocopy of national identity card

• original and photocopy of academic and professional certificates

• original and photocopy of appointment/ promotion letter

• original and photocopy of confirmation letter

• original and photocopy of current deployment letter and

• pay slip for December 2023 and January 2024 signed by the responsible officer.

The Ministry of Public Service has since revised the schedule for validation of public servants.

In a statement issued by the Permanent Secretary, Catherine Batarakwate Musingwiire, said, “The validation exercise commenced as planned on March 11, 2024, however, it has been established that more employees are showing up for the exercise than those initially planned mainly due to new employees recruited after the validation exercise by the office of the Auditor General.” 

“In view of the above and to avoid spillover from the previous schedules, the validation exercise has been revised,” Musingwiire said in a statement dated March March 13, 2024.

The exercise kicked off on Monday in Kampala and at district headquarters countrywide.

The Ministry of Public Serve last week issued a schedule for the exercise which started on March 11, 2024, to May 17, 2024 (Monday to Friday), 8:00am to 5:00pm at the National Archies and Records Center in Kampala and at district headquarters.

The affected public officers are supposed to appear on the dates indicated against their votes. The dates are indicated in the schedule and can be accessed on www.publicservice.go.ug or from the office of the responsible officers.

The State Minister for Public Service, Mary Mugasa, told a news conference in Kampala on Thursday, March 7, 2024 that any public officer who will remain unverified after May 17, 2024, shall be permanently deleted from the payroll.

Updating Ugandans on the verifications of unverified public officers following the special payroll audit by the office of the Auditor General (AG) to ensure efficiency and integrity of the payroll, the minister said the wage allocation for 2023/24 has been repurposed to cater for only verified public officers and those recommended for retention on the payroll and same principle maintained for 2024/25 fiscal year.

“The Ministry of Public Service would like to inform the public that a verification exercise will be conducted for public officers in ministries, departments, agencies, and local governments who remained unverified or partially verified during the special audit of the payroll by the office of Auditor General,” Mugasa said.

AG findings

The Auditor General, John Muwanga, established that that 10,192 government employees should not have been on the government payroll by June 2023. A total of sh53b was annually being paid to this category of staff.

This was contained in the audit report he presented to Parliament on the annual accounts of government for the year ended 30th June 2023.

The report contained audit findings on the government of Uganda consolidated financial statements, and the financial performance of public corporations, state enterprises, and companies in which the government has a controlling interest.

Muwanga said that he undertook a special audit of the salary payroll across government, which included validation of all government employees in 367 entities comprising 162 ministries, agencies, and departments of government, 176 local governments, and 29 other government organisations for the month of February 2023.