UNRA conducts interviews for over 1000 applicants

The Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) has named the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) offices on Sixth Street in Industrial Area as the venue for job interviews.

The venue is contained in the second released list of 1,097 shortlisted applicants for the various jobs that the roads body advertised in January. This brings the total number of shortlisted candidates to about 1,800.

At the selected venue, the shortlisted candidates were expected to sit for aptitude and competence tests between 8:00am and 2:00pm, according to a document on the UNRA website.

In the second shortlist, applicants have been shortlisted for jobs in 22 categories. The second shortlist follows the first list released on March 17, where over 700 people who applied for UNRA jobs were shortlisted.

Like it was the case with the first shortlist, names of the applicants who have been shortlisted have been published on the UNRA website.

"UNRA would like to inform the general public that the shortlisting exercise commenced and the shortlists are being released in phases," UNRA said in a statement. 

In the second shortlist, the post of maintenance technician had the highest number of candidates with 279 applicants shortlisted. UNRA also shortlisted; drainage engineers, pavement specialists, drainage engineers, maintenance design engineers, materials engineers, surveyors, road maintenance engineers and plant attendants.

Others shortlisted are; bridges and structures engineers, road rehabilitation managers, senior land valuers, procurement officers, ferry engineers, ferry engineers, legal officers, electrical technicians, and compliance officers.

Applicants formed lengthy cues to submit their applications letters at UNRA's Kyambogo offices in January. Photo by Hajarah Nalwadda

The first shortlist had the post of ‘Land Acquisition Officer' with the highest number of shortlisted applicants standing at 150 candidates. It was followed by the posts of; ferry engineer and mechanic, with each having 69 applicants shortlisted.

UNRA noted that shortlisted candidates would be subjected to an aptitude and competence test whose dates and time would be communicated later to each of the candidate's personal contacts (phones and e-mails) as presented to the roads body at the time of application.

In the recently released cencus report, 58% of Ugandans were found to be unemployed for reasons other than pursuing studies.

The report indicated that majority of those unemployed are women with 65.2% (over 11m) of them 'redundant.'

Any form of lobbying by shortlisted candidates, the roads authority warned, would lead to automatic disqualification, adding that, "UNRA does not charge any money for any service towards the process of one's application at all stages of the recruitment process."

The advertisement for job applications at UNRA followed the sacking of the entire staff by the new management led by executive director, Allen Kagina, in a bid to restructure the roads body.

The sacking of all UNRA's 900 staff members in was prompted by numerous cases of corruption and fraud. Among the most prominent cases was the sh165b Mukono-Katosi road deal where sh24.7b was feared lost.

The contractor, who claimed to be Eutaw Construction Company of US whereas it was not, allegedly used fraudulent bank and insurance documents to secure the 74km road deal.

The deal was inked following a directive by the Works Minister, Eng. Abraham Byandala, to the acting UNRA executive director, Eng. Ssebbuga Kimeze, to expeditiously sign the deal before due diligence was done.

Byandala and Kimeze together with several other UNRA staff implicated in the scandal have since lost their jobs and are facing prosecution in the Anti-Corruption Court.