On October 12, the Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Energy issued a memo to the top managers at Amber House guiding on how Rural Electrification Agency (REA) staff should hand over offices as they wait to be shortlisted having applied to join public service.
This was after REA was absorbed into the mainstream ministry as a way of implementing the cabinet’s decision of re emerging government agencies as a means of mitigating unnecessary government expenditure.
“The Statutory Instrument No.29 of 2021, Clause 13 provides a duration and states that this Instrument shall remain in force for a period not exceeding two years and shall then expire. The Instrument came into force on the 19th October 2020 and will therefore expire on 18th October 2022,” PS Irene Bateebe wrote in the memo.
She added that this duration was informed by information provided at the time that by this date, all contracts of staff of former REA would have lapsed, and this time was directed by Cabinet for completion of the mainstreaming process.
The PS therefore invited all REA staff to read section 6.10 of the Rural Electrification Agency, Human Resource Manual that requires that when an employee is leaving Office he/she must make a formal and well prepared handover report in writing.
“The purpose of this internal memo therefore, is to provide to you handover guidelines as provided for under Section F-d of the Uganda Public Service Standing Orders 2021,” she directed.
She ordered the whole corporate communications and community affairs department of REA hands over office to the principal communications officer of Ministry of Energy.
REA’s team was headed by Dr Patricia Litho who served as the PRO of the agency.
What shocked the officials at the Ministry is that Dr Patricia instead asked her team to hand over to her contrary to Bateebe’s directive.
“She refused to hand over office and everything her team had including accountability documents until the PS intervened,” said a source.
But she was later compelled to hand over and immediately existed all Whatsapp groups of the institutions after positing a strong-worded text in which she indicated that when she walked into the Ministry last year in July, she knew she had won herself enemies.
While disbanding REA, the Ministry of Energy created ‘Assistant Commissioner of Communications’ a slot which Dr Patricia was sure she would occupy.
To her dismay, the position was later scrapped following concerns from other workers if she was very special and go through proper public service procedure to join government.
