Balaam Promises To Rotate Local Gov’t Workers In Move To End ‘Network Of Thieves’

Balaam Barugahara

The Minister designate for Local Government, Balaam Barugahara has revealed plans to embark on rotation of local government workers across the country.

He argues that the practice of maintaining public officials in one post for years has bred corruption and led to the creation of small gods in local governments.

He made the remarks on 2nd June 2026, while addressing the media following his vetting by Parliament’s Appointments Committee, where he revealed that the rotation will be undertaken every three years.

“I want to remove that habit of keeping people in one position in a district, they become chiefs of districts. How can someone serve 20 years in one single district? Why would ministers be rotated and someone remains in a district? We need now to rotate them to a nearby district. Every three years, we should rotate these workers, so that we remove the network of thieves and people who have been stealing government money,” Barugahara noted.

According to Barugahara, with Uganda being in a political transitional period, his appointment to the Ministry of Local Government is intended to effect the transition within local governments and lead the fight against corruption.

“It is now a transition, why I am appointed in this ministry is to help Mzee (President Museveni) with the transition. Many of you love to hear political transition, but you will not achieve a proper political transition unless you have transited the poor in the village who make up over 33.1%. We need to help those poor (people) to get out of poverty using the available government programmes,” he said.

The Minister designate for Local Government also vowed to end the practice of absconding from duty among public servants, where biometric machines will be placed in all local government offices, and connected to the system at the Ministry of Local Government to monitor attendance of workers.

“So, I am appealing to the Chief Administrative Officers and the sub-county chiefs, that your time of reporting to office late, coming as and when you wish, it has come to an end. We are going to introduce biometric data entry, as you enter, we count how many times you have worked, we count the days you have reported and the days you have exited. We count those days on a central system which will be at our headquarters of local government. If you miss out on five different occasions without permission of the permanent secretary, count yourself out of the district. We need the people who will work for the people. This is a term of no sleep as we transit to the next generation,” Barugahara added.