Koboko youth, elders protest over recruitment

A group of youth and elders on Monday stormed Koboko District headquarters offices claiming they had been denied jobs after sitting interviews.

Their protest comes after the district in 2020 advertised more than 200 positions in the sectors of education, health, community service, agriculture and human resource.

However, due to Covid-19 lockdown and lack of functional district service commission, the recruitment exercise was halted until late November 2021 while other interviews were scheduled for January 2022.

The vacancies advertised with the ongoing oral interviews scheduled to run from January 24 to January 30 include 29 positions for enrolled nurse, 25 enrolled midwives, five medical laboratory assistants and three vacancies for senior clinical officers.

The protestors, who stormed the chief administrative office and the district service commission, claimed that there has been job bribery, shortlisting of incompetent candidates, sexual harassment and nepotism, among others.

They also demanded that the ongoing interviews be halted.

Ms Flavia Tabu, who applied for the position of enrolled nurse and was not shortlisted for the oral interviews, said: “Some people who were not shortlisted have been considered for the oral interviews. We are querying how this can be possible.” 

She added: “This clearly shows the irregularities in the system. We need fairness in job recruitment.”

Ms Hijira Fikira, who also applied for enrolled nurse, said: “We are being denied jobs in our own district.” 
Mr Moses Yakan, a candidate who also  applied for the position of enrolled nurse, said the district did not advertise the position of psychiatrist nurse but  a candidate was shortlisted.

“When you go through the aptitude test results, you will find that some of the candidates who were shortlisted for orals were not shortlisted for aptitude test. We don’t want corruption and it has been happening in this district,” he said.

CAO  responds
Mr John Bosco Akera, the chief administrative officer, admitted that there were isolated errors in the current recruitment process which will be corrected by the commission.

“This matter was raised to me. I had to instruct the auditor to give me a report over the exercise and  she did so on Monday. It is clear that there was an error with only one case,” he said.

He added: “I have taken note of these issues and I will be able to bring them to the attention of the service commission for correction.” 

Mr Akera said although there are allegations of bribery in the service commission, no one has provided evidence thus making investigation difficult.

“Since May last year when I joined Koboko District local government, I have been hearing complaints of selling jobs but the challenge is no one comes to you with specific case,” he said.