Nakaseke officials ask ministry to reassign institute principal

Authorities in Nakaseke District have asked the Ministry of Education and Sports to recall the principal of Nakaseke Technical Institute and possibly assign him other duties outside the district over alleged gross mismanagement and abuse of administrative procedures.

In the November 22 correspondences addressed to the Education ministry, Nakaseke District officials cite a recent incident where the principal, Mr Alexander Mugisha, presented to the district authorities the institute’s strategic development plan under the title “St Kizito Technical Institute” instead of Nasakeke Technical Institute, his workstation.

“We are worried that we could be dealing with somebody with a mental challenge. He has messed up everything and when asked to explain, his responses are shocking. How do you present to the district authorities a strategic development plan of a different institution outside our district? Now that he is acting that way, we have asked the line ministry to find him a better place and not Nakaseke Technical Institute,” Mr Ignatius Kiwanuka Koomu, said in an interview on Tuesday.

Asked about what other district officials felt when they received copies of a report of a different institution, Mr Koomu said everybody felt the principal was struggling to manage the institute.

“It is possible that he did not have the original strategic development plan for Nakaseke Technical Institute, and it was a copy and paste. Under normal circumstances, the principal should have proofread the report and edited all information regarding St Kizito Technical Institute. This is gross disrespect to both the Institute’s Board of Governors and Nakaseke District Local Government,” he said.

According to Nakaseke District officials, Mr Mugisha had been asked to prepare and present the institute’s strategic development plan in May, but he kept on postponing the dates for delivery of the document until November when he finally delivered a document belonging to a different institution, and with a different foundation body [Church of Uganda].

On October 23, a group of students at Nakaseke Technical Institute reached out to the office of the Inspectorate of Government (IG) seeking possible intervention on a number of challenges at the institute.

The students claimed the institute at the time was running without power (electricity) while several of their tutors had reportedly resigned.

“I have received complaints on a piece of paper from students at Nakaseke Technical Institute. It will be unfair if I don’t talk about these issues since we already have the stakeholders and the institute principal with us,” Mr James Penywii, the director of research, education and advocacy at the IG, said on October 23.

Mr Ramathan Kasozi, the acting Nakaseke District Chief Administrative Officer, said the challenges at Nakaseke Technical Institute forced them to conduct an audit detailing the institute’s assets and finances, among other issues.

“On October 21, we received the audit report from the audit team assigned by the district,” he said.

Defence

In an earlier interview with Monitor, Mr Mugisha in his defence insisted the different challenges facing the institution were not out of control and could be resolved amicably.

“I am surprised that these issues are raising a lot of concern. It is true that we currently don’t have electricity, but this problem is strange and there could be some sort of sabotage. The government only gave us 13 teachers out of the 26 teaching staff. It is also true that two teachers recently resigned, but we are handling the challenges,” he said .

However, we could not reach out to him over claims of presenting a wrong strategic development plan. But Daily Monitor got a copy of the plan that he reportedly appended his signature.

Government injected Shs13b in construction and equipping of Nakaseke Technical Institute in 2016 facilitated by the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA). 

While the government equipped the institute with machines, library, workshops to boost the students' learning, the institute with capacity to accommodate 500 students currently has 168 students. 

The college principal said several of the installed machinery have never been used because the institute lacks the technical expertise to use them.

The district officials have reportedly secured an appointment with the State Minister for Higher Education, Mr John Chrysostom Muyingo, to discuss the challenges.

[email protected]