Members of 10th Parliament sitting on the Committee of Presidential Affairs have called for the scrapping off of positions of Resident District Commissioners (RDCs) and Presidential Advisors because these are “contributing nothing to development of the country.”
The suggestion to get rid of this group was tabled by Adjumani Woman MP, Jesca Ababiku on Tuesday during the interface with officials from State House, following complaints by some legislators that all the RDCs do is to fight with juniors over workshop facilitation.
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Ababiku noted, “Some of us have been in support of the existence of RDC but they have become unruly of the late; so should we pass a move that these RDCs shouldn’t be there because we are failing to manage them?”
As for the Presidential Advisors, the MPs protested wasting tax payers’ money facilitating and paying them yet they do nothing.
According to MPs, some of the Presidential Advisors have never met the President since their appointment.
Suzan Amero the Amuria MP revealed; “They even ask us MPs, could you talk to so and so? If you can manage to penetrate, I can meet the President.”
However, former Presidential Advisor Atwooki Kasirivu now turned MP disputed the assertion saying the Presidential Advisors are given assignments and write reports.
But Ababiku fired back saying there is need for these Advisors to go beyond writing reports and instead interact with the appointing Authority.
She explained; “We need value for money by the way, these people are paid, facilitated so I think they need to do more than what the Minister is saying.”
Uganda has 106 Presidential Advisors with each of them receiving around Shs2.5M in salaries with other additional benefits such as vehicle and fuel plus other allowances.
In the last appointments, the number of RDCs shot to 167 with their salaries ranging between Shs1.5-2M depending on their levels.
Doborah Katuramu, the Secretary to the Office of the President admitted that most of the Advisors never get to meet their boss and promised to come up with a forum for them to interact with him.
“What we can do is to try and create a forum where they can meet the President, but as you all know the President is a very busy person but that is the best we can do” Katuramu said.
When asked if these Advisors have terms of reference, Katuramu admitted that whereas some of them have, most don’t.