The National Resistance Movement (NRM) legislators have agreed with President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni’s guidance to support all the 16 rationalization bills.
It’s only the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) and National Information and Technology Authority Uganda (NITA-U) that were exempted for three years.
According to Hamson Obua, the Government Chief Whip, the three years accorded to the UCDA and NITA-U are transition periods.
“NRM MPs agreed to pass all the bills on rationalization, providing for a three-year transitional period for Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) and National Information Technology Authority Uganda (NITA-U). Apart from the two, any other agency stands to be rationalized fully. It is only the two where there will be a provision on a transition for three years. So why not Dairy Development Authority (DDA)? I think that is done,” Obua said.
GCW Obua defended the three years given to the two agencies, noting the need to resolve questions around international accreditation for UCDA and the need for NITA-U to complete two key infrastructure projects its undertaking that are being funded by loans from the World Bank.
“We are cognizant of the fact that during the rare transition, there are challenges that the country met, especially on projects that were ongoing arising from loans or grants that the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) had, so we don’t want to run into that risk. NITA-U will be given the opportunity to implement both the loan and the grant, and once the three years are coming to an end, that will mark the end. But the rest of the other 14 remaining will be rationalized,” Obua added.
The Government Chief Whip also noted that rationalization is intended to make the government appear leaner, aiming at avoiding duplication.
On the fate of the staff in the agencies, Obua noted that the human staff with expertise will be absorbed into their respective ministries, explaining.
“We aren’t saying that even the experts in UCDA will pack and go home; we aren’t saying the experts in all the government entities will pack and go home. The government will get a way of accommodating those experts within the departments that will be created in each and every ministry, as opposed to creating these autonomous, semi-autonomous bodies with boards and parallel structures. So, all those experts will be accommodated within the government structure,” he noted.
Parliament has recently undertaken a significant rationalization of government agencies, aiming to enhance efficiency and optimize resource allocation.
This process has involved the approval of several bills and the merging or reorganization of various entities.