John Nakabago was unfairly blamed

SIR — On September 1 the New Vision ran an article about a recruitment scandal in the Ministry of Education and subsequent articles from various writers expressing opinions on the matter. In my opinion, this issue appears to be much more of an institutional conflict rather than the personalities involved and it may therefore be best resolved politically. All the articles condemn Mr. John Nakabago’s stay in the office of the Assistant Commissioner Construction management against the appointment of Engineer Justus Akankwasa who got the job on merit. A deliberate effort has been made to drum up public sentiment by making the public believe that Mr. Nakabago has wrongly stuck in a position he is not competent to hold due to tribal backing and political patronage. It appears obvious that the writers lack the background information to this saga and that is why their views and comments, being premised on inadequate information, are likely to mislead the public. I wish to furnish the public with the background information which will enable them make a fair judgment. Information gathered from the Ministry of Education reveals that Nakabago was appointed as director, project implementation unit (a unit responsible for implementing all construction projects in the, ministry), in 1998, following the dismissal of his predecessors for the mismanagement of various projects. Despite the fact that PIU had several professional engineers, the performance of the projects remained unsatisfactory. With his managerial skills, Nakabago was able to instantly and dramatically turn around most of the construction projects and other activities of the unit. By the time PIU wound up four years later, all the projects had been implemented to the satisfaction of the government and development partners. The World Bank’s project completion report commended his outstanding contribution. The above scenario clearly implies that the problem in PIU before Nakabago joined was not shortage of engineers but absence of managerial skills. When the construction unit was formed, Nakabago was appointed on contract as Assistant Commissioner and head of the unit pending recruitment by the Pubic Service Commission. According to sources in the ministry he has continued to effectively manage the unit todate. The beginning of the current saga was the manner in which the recruitment process was handled. The professional specifications of the Assistant Commissioner were deliberately altered to throw out Nakabago from a job he had effectively handled since 1998. Interestingly, the job description proposed by the Ministry of Education required a professional with managerial competence and not exclusively an engineer. The head of the Public Service concurred with this view and one wonders why the powers that be altered these specifications. What was the motive of denying a man who reportedly performed well for over seven years and even got the chance to compete for the job? Sources in the Ministry of Education reveal that there has ever been a precedent where a good performer has been retained in department with the approval of the public service. For example, a career diplomat was retained to head the Department of Higher Education and was later appointed a commissioner. Internationally, the trend is that technical qualifications for managers of organisations or departments are not necessarily tied to the nature of services delivered by those departments. In Europe, managers of hospitals are not necessary medical doctors and road agencies are not necessarily headed by engineers. Finally, the public should know that the SFG programme and all its resources is managed by districts and not the construction unit. Richard Masereje Kampala