By KT Reporter
The Shadow Minister in charge of local government, Betty Ethal Naluyima, has called for retooling of technocrats to enhance service delivery demands.
While addressing journalists in Jinja city, Naluyima notes that several senior technocrats joined the local government about two decades ago when systems were being handled manually and have, in turn, failed to adjust to the modern ICT systems. This, she says, hampers service delivery as a lot of time is wasted on applying systems which are incompatible with.
Her request was triggered by some of the technocrats at the local government level who were unable to table documents detailing comprehensive service delivery to the communities where they are deployed.
One of the town clerks who spoke on condition of anonymity says that the trainings in largely finance management systems last for either two weeks or less, which is inadequate. He says that this causes delays in filing returns, which portrays them as fraudsters before the auditors.
Another education officer says that the newly introduced education management information system, EMIS, is a game-changer in controlling the number of ghost pupils in UPE schools; however, several headteachers are unable to use the system.
She says that this has resulted in endless errors with some schools registering either fewer or exaggerated figures, which auditors categorise as a form of fraud.
Naluyima observes that some service delivery shortfalls result from the inability of local government cadres to anchor through the streamlined tech-based systems, requiring timely solutions to benefit the wider public.
Naluyima says that they have traversed the different parts of the country while reviewing the different findings in the Auditor General’s report, but their committee observed low levels of implementation from local governments in the Eastern region.
She notes that these setbacks are partly blamed on the failure of the designated officials to anchor through the tech-based performance systems as required.
Naluyima argues that there is no need for affirmative action in regards to training technocrats from the Eastern region so that they are able to align with the improved service delivery outcomes observed in the different parts of the country.
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