Inadequate staffing stifling service delivery in Masindi

Bulima Town Council in Masindi has had its capacity to deliver service to the masses crawling slower than snails due to inadequate staffing, mayor Osborn Majuga said.

Mr Majuga said out of the 50 staff needed, they only have 13, with the town council lacking critical staff like a community development officer, production officer, a physical planner among other heads of departments.

"We have talked and talked calling for more staff but in vain," he bemoaned.

"We lack critical personnel, we are being strained, so extending better services to the populace is hard."

Asaph Kasaija, the LC 2 chairman for Greater Kahembe, notes a big gap when it comes to service delivery, but also monitoring.

"I want to ask, fine they gave us a town council in 2021 good, but why give us onlyme 13 staff to run the 18 villages, and three parishes, no doubt monitoring and implementation of government programs becomes hard," he said.

The woman councillor for Kahembe Lower Ward, Ms Beatrice Eto, said the absence of a community development officer has seen poor implementation and monitoring of the government wealth creation programme, Parish Development Model.

"The CDO is so critical in most of these government programmes, we are relying on agents bu do they have all the information the people need? Is it their mandate like it is for the CDO? You just can't hold others accountable for a programme they are just taking care of," Eto said.

For close to two years, Masindi leaders especially between the council and the executive have been embroiled in conflicts that saw the council suspend the district service commission, accusing them of siding with LC 5 to sell jobs.

"We call upon different stakeholders to reign in, including the mother ministry so that sanity is realised," Mayor Majuga said.

"The District Service Commission needs to their job, it's here that more people can apply and suitable candidates given opportunities to serve."

Besides staffing leaders, the also claim they are also challenged with a poor road network, something that has made agriculture and transportation of goods to market hard.