Category: National News

HIDA could help institutions to deliver.

By: Patrick Bigabo

If well implemented and subsequently accepted, the Multi-Sector Capacity Building Programme (MSCBP) could help knock out the vacuum in the country’s public administration which has been characterized by deficiency in infrastructure, poor policies and deployment of personnel in public service without requisite aptitude.

MSCBP was developed to improve coherence, consistency and coordination of capacity building interventions in both private and public sectors including civil society organizations all overseen by a much stronger and independent agency HIDA.

While much has been achieved in the past twelve years by the incumbent government, there is a lot yet to be done if MSCBP is to bear fruits. There are a lot of institutional setbacks that continue to affect service delivery.

Instances such as government officials illegally influencing employment of incompetent persons basing on their personal ties, political affiliation among other allegiances are so extensive but latent, yet the country has so many unemployed but qualified professionals. Therefore MSCBP will have to take note of such instances before taking every institution for granted. The recently launched skills audit should not only identify the people with the skills, but also place them where they fit technically.

The poor service delivery in the nationally owned media especially Television and other privately owned media organizations face a problem of recruitment without considering professional competence, yet the national radio and television have the most modern equipment in the region thus the priority of such an institution in building capacity would be training of staff to acquire skills.

Under the MSCBP where a demand-driven approach to capacity building is highly preferred, a scholarship proposal suggested to HIDA by national information office (ORINFOR) must undergo thorough scrutiny before implementation because approving funds to train incompetent persons would be a wasted of time and this would in actual sense not be priority in such an institution instead the institution would consider hiring skilled personnel available on the market.

With MSCBP the government will enhance ability to recruit, motivate and retain a critical mass of technical and professional skills and also attaining sustainable improvement in capacity and performance of individual government organizations.

Also the government still says it lacks skilled human power that critically affects the country’s development rhythm, capacity building actions under MSCBP should be accomplished through putting in place a scheme to facilitate associates especially young and middle-age public servants to pursue professional studies.

The education institutions in the country should also consider strong course packages which are compliant with the current market environment and global changes. Continuously training university students using old information and data shall always hinder performance of institutions in which they would later be employed. This not-new scenario is reason as to why government is spending a lot of money sending many individuals abroad to study whereas such money would be used to strengthen the local institutions.

Poor procurement practices still persist in several institutions where a lot of insider trading and influence peddling have affected quality of infrastructure. Therefore MSCBP comes at a time when several institutions are on demand to improve guiding policies, infrastructure and personnel skills.

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