All Government agencies have been urged not to recruit new staff in the 2024/25 Financial year, unless if explicit permission has been granted by the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Public Service.
The pronouncement was made by Ramathan Ggoobi, Secretary to Treasury in the 15th July 2024 Budget Execution Circular, that was released to guide agencies on how to execute and manage the 2024/25 national budget.
“There will be no recruitment of staff (public service or contract staff) during the financial year except; on a replacement basis; in case of incapacitation, where funds have been provided for recruitment of teachers and health workers under the UGIFT Programme and explicit clearance from not the Ministry of Finance and that of Public Service. Accounting Officers are required to obtain clearance from the Ministry of Public Service before accessing newly recruited staff on the payroll,” wrote Ggoobi.
Following the February 2023 Government Payroll Audit, Government adopted new guidelines on the management of the payroll, with Ggoobi asking Accounting Officers to ensure that the current and future employees of Government only access the payroll after producing several documents including; National Identification Number (NIN), Tax Identification Number (TIN), IFMS Supplier Number and Integrated personnel and Payroll System (IPPS)/ Human Capital Management Number.
It should be recalled that in February 202, the Auditor General conducted a national verification of Government payroll covering four financial years, 2019/20 to 2022/23 where he recommended the recovery of Shs53Bn from 10,192 ‘ghost workers’ who had been drawing salaries from different Government bodies, after some were found to have died, retired or absconded from duty.
The special audit of the salary payroll across government, saw the validation undertaken in 367 entities comprising of 162MDAs, 179Local Governments and 29 other Government organisations and this covered the period between 2019/2020 to 2022/23.
In a bid to further deepen budget transparency and accountability to the public, all Local Governments are required to hold an accountability day during which, the District Chairperson, Municipal Mayor presents to all stakeholders, the report on all revenues and program expenditures/ projects implemented during the preceding financial year. In addition, the LGs are encouraged to use all media platforms at their disposal within their current budgets to highlight priorities in their budgets and account to the public for resources used.
These events should be held towards the end of the Financial Year in the ninth of June in order to coincide with other Budget Transparency activities (Budget Month) that are held with the aim of accounting for public resources received and utilized during the preceding Financial Year.
But for kitagwenda district we were shortlisted in May on replacement basis and interviews were postponed now it is four months for sure help us thank you