NFA seeks to amend terms for its executive director

Service. National Forest Authority executive director Michael Mugisa’s term of office expires end of this month. PHOTO BY STEPHEN WANDERA

What you need to know:

  • Recruitment. The boards says they have begun the process to recruit a new executive director.
  • A number of government forest reserves have been cleared over the recent years and President Museveni has on several of occasions publicly expressed displeasure at the performance of NFA.

Kampala. The National Forestry Authority (NFA) board is seeking legal interpretation on whether Mr Michael Mugisa, who has served his two mandatory terms as the authority’s executive director, is eligible for reappointment.
Mr Mugisa’s two three-year terms at the helm of the authority expire at the end of this month.

The NFA board chair, Mr Gershom Onyango, in a January 3, letter to the Solicitor General, Mr Francis Atoke, says a process to recruit NFA executive director is on but sought guidance on whether he qualifies for re-appointment.

“Our understanding of the provision (supra), however, is that upon open and competitive procurement process of the executive director, one would be appointed for an initial term of three years and a re-appointment would not ordinarily require a repeat of the competitive open procurement process but rather an evaluation and appraisal of the sitting executive director and the board would, if such a candidate meets the evaluation and appraisal criteria, recommend to the Minister to re-appoint him or her to the position of executive director,” reads a letter accessed by this newspaper.

It continues: “The purpose of this letter is to seek your legal and advisory guidance with regards to the wording and import of Section 67(1) of the National Forestry and Tree Planting Act, 2003 and specifically, what would be the position in the event a candidate who has already served the two terms envisaged under the Act, applies to be considered in a fresh open competitive procurement process?”

“Would considering such a candidate be a re-appointment or would one argue that it is a fresh appointment since he/she is subjecting themselves to a fresh open competitive process and not an internal evaluation to the exclusion of other candidates?”
Mr Onyango confirmed writing to the Solicitor General yesterday but declined to divulge details on why he sought interpretation yet previous NFA executive directors have served their terms and left.

Mr Atoke when contacted yesterday said he has been out of office and could not comment on the matter.
The National Forestry and Tree Planting Act, 2003, section 67 (1) provides that the executive director shall hold office for three years and is eligible for reappointment for one more term.

Mr Gaster Kiyingi, the chairman of the Uganda Forestry Working Group, a network of forestry stakeholders, when contacted said there was no need for legal interpretation but rather for Mr Mugisa to give chance to other people to serve the authority. “The opportunity to change management style is now for NFA to have a new sense of direction, new approaches to fundraising, approaches for meaningful partnerships and new management styles among others,” Mr Kiyingi said.

Mr Mugisa was unavailable for a comment as his known phone numbers were inaccessible.

NFA is directly in charge of protecting the 506 central forest reserves from encroachment.
It has, however, had debatable performance.

Large tracts of government forest reserves have been cleared over the recent years and President Museveni has on a number of occasions publicly expressed displeasure at the performance of NFA.

“Those people of the forests (NFA) are not doing a good job. They are not serious. The government has given them all powers to protect forests. But they just sit there, doing nothing,” Mr Museveni said on April 23, 2014 as he launched a tree planting campaign started by a youth group, “Go Green Campaign”, in Kampala.

He said it would be useless to plant trees when the existing ones were not being protected.
In 2015, a Joint Water and Environment Sector Review Report put the country’s forest cover at 11 per cent, but the 2017 review indicates that the country forest cover now stands at 9 per cent.

Mr Mugisa told this paper last year that much of the degraded forests are on private land.