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KAMPALA - Parliament has asked Government to give priority to former staff of the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) who have not been absorbed by the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development.

Parliament requested that the REA staff who were left out but have the technical expertise which can be useful be recruited by government.

The report of Parliament’s Committee on Environment and Natural Resources that was approved by the House on Tuesday (April 2, 2024) said the eligible but unabsorbed staff should be appointed across the different ministries, departments, and agencies in accordance with the planned mitigation measures by the ministry of public service.

Fredrick Angura (Tororo South Country, NRM) presented the report of the committee on the petition against the alleged irregular recruitment process of staff of former REA into the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development under the rural electrification department by the Public Service Commission and the energy ministry.

The report recommended that the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development re-assess and take into consideration key positions that were eliminated during the drafting of the job structure for filling to incorporate technical personnel who were left out.

The committee learned that there were 96 staff with contracts with the Government of Uganda. Out of these 61 were recommended for different positions, while four staff positions were declared redundant, and 32 staff were not recommended based on different grounds including; lack of vacancies, age, and qualification.

Sidronius Okaasai, the State Minister for Energy and Mineral Development, in response, said that there is a commissioner in charge of rural electrification called Abdul Atwine.

Okaasai said that staff who were good performers at REA were absorbed. He said that many people in the procurement, and accountancy department at REA were not absorbed because the ministry had them.

He added that there were many people who were working on projects that were not absorbed by the ministry.

The committee observed that whereas the ministry terminated the contract of the ICT personnel for redundancy, the ministry continues to outsource IT services to continue supporting the vending system installed at Uganda Electricity Distribution Company Ltd in order to minimise service disruption.

The committee recommends that the ministry reevaluate the relevance of posts that were declared redundant to ensure that they fall within the legally acceptable ambit of redundancy with a view of mainstreaming critical staff who were holding such positions.

The committee observed that not all terminated former REA staff of about 15 have received their retirement benefits from the ministry.

The committee recommended that the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development expedite the payment of all retirement and pending benefits including NSSF, golden handshake of three months, severance allowance, and certificate of service.

Others are transport for self, baggage immediate family, and any other outstanding benefits to all the terminated staff as stipulated in the REA Human Resource Manual and General Contractual Conditions within three months from the time of adoption of the report.