Mistrust, cries of unfairness as states fall out over EAC job vacancies
East African Community offices in Arusha, Tanzania.
What you need to know:
Proposals on way forward
- Tanzania and Burundi say the recruitment should proceed in accordance with the Staff Rules and Regulations, 2006.
- South Sudan and Rwanda said the recruitment process should be handled by the Commission to ensure transparency of the process and to avoid conflict of interest.
A dispute over the distribution of jobs in the organs of the East African Community (EAC), which has simmered for close to a decade, came to a head last week when the bloc’s legislative assembly blocked the hiring of House clerks, citing irregularities in the recruitment process.
Cat-and-mouse games unfolded in the East African Legislative Assembly (Eala) in Arusha over the hiring of a clerk and a deputy, signalling festering discontent with the staffing ratios in the Community.
Ugandan legislators, led by Denis Namara, have been at the forefront of the quest for equity in the recruitment of staff, dramatically staging walkouts that made Speaker Martin Ngoga suspend sittings on Tuesday through to Thursday due to lack of quorum.
The Eala started sittings in Arusha on October 3 and are expected to run until October 20.
The EAC Secretariat, early this year, advertised at least 60 vacant positions whose filling has unveiled bad blood and unhealthy competition among the six partner states.
An extraordinary Council of Ministers meeting scheduled for last Wednesday, which was expected to finalise the staff recruitment process, had to be moved to a later date, perhaps in the next week, at the prompting of Uganda’s EAC Affairs Minister Rebecca Kadaga, who had reportedly travelled.
Defer interviews
Later on Friday, Ms Kadaga wrote to the Secretary-General demanding that the interviews set for October 18 for various advertised jobs at the EAC organs and institutions be deferred.
“As you are aware, EAC partner States agreed that a partner state must have points in order for its citizens to be considered eligible candidates and that at the beginning of each recruitment exercise the EAC Secretariat shall inform each partner state about her balance of weighted points (refer to Article 4.6 of the Operational Manual for Implementation of the Quota System). In respect to the above, this is to inform you that the Republic of Uganda requests postponement of the interviews... until the Secretariat submits the available quota points for each partner state as at the time/date of advertising the jobs,” the later dated October 15, 2021 reads.
Some have read mischief in the Ugandan MPs’ manoeuvres, saying they have gone to great lengths to have their way.
In a motion tabled in the Assembly, Mr Namara, chair of the General Purpose (Budget) Committee, insisted that the process of recruiting a House clerk and deputy, advertised in July, failed to adhere to the EAC’s quota system, which espouses equity in staffing.
“We want the EAC to suspend the entire staff recruitment exercise for violating the principles and regulations and objectives of integration, the Treaty, the Staff Rules and Regulations and operational manual for implementation of the quota system,” said Mr Namara.
“We call for a forensic audit into the quota system and restrictions applied to citizens for partner states in the job advertisements, receiving of applications, profiling, short-listing and interviewing of candidates in the ongoing recruitment exercise,” he added.
Mr Namara wants an independent firm appointed to conduct the interviews.
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