Agriculture ministry on the spot over Naads
Minister Bright Rwamirama
The Ministry of Agriculture has been put on the spot over irregularities in the recruitment and laying off of staff at the National Agriculture Advisory Services secretariat.
Kigulu South MP Milton Muwuma told Parliament on Tuesday that a number of Naads staff have been thrown out of office and replaced with unqualified and incompetent staff.
“The way the restructuring process in this secretariat is being done is wanting,” Mr Muwuma said. “Workers have been forced to leave work and have been replaced by people who are appointed in dubious ways.”
Mr Muwuma said the former Naads Executive Director, Dr Silim Nahdy, is one of the people who were wrongly forced out.
The Kigulu South MP named Mr Edgar Toyesiga and Ms Rehema Turyakira as the people who were wrongly appointed to the positions of principal auditor and finance personnel respectively.
However, Junior Agriculture Minister Bright Rwamirama said Mr Muwuma was lying and trying to be a voice for disgruntled people who fear facing competition to get jobs.
“Silim Nahdy declined to be reappointed and it’s not true that he was wrongly forced out of office,” he said. “The other officials have been reappointed several times and we decided to open the floor for other eligible people.”
However, a letter from Mr Nahdy to the Ministry of Agriculture reveals that his warnings about the anomalies in the way recruitment and restructuring in the Naads secretariat was handled were ignored and that it was one of the reasons he refused to take up the reappointment.
