Cheats to be flushed out of offices

BERNARD LUGONGO in Dodoma

Minister of State, President’s Office (Public Service Management and Good Governance), Ms Angela Kairuki

THE government’s effort to weed out unqualified workers has taken a new turn with the Minister of State in the President’s Office (Public Service Management and Good Governance), Ms Angelah Kairuki, announcing that next month all employees who failed to submit their academic certificates for verification will be sacked.

She said in the National Assembly on Friday evening that a major crackdown on unqualified workers would take place on March 1. “We have given them enough time to submit the certificates and alternatively, we asked them to hand over even their examination index numbers, but still couldn’t do so.

Because of this, we are going to fire them,” she stated. She told the National Assembly that the Fifth Phase Government is determined to ensure that only qualified civil servants remain in their jobs, insisting that anyone with no academic qualifications would be sent packing.

Ms Kairuki stated this when responding to issues relating to good governance and public service as highlighted in the report presented by the Parliamentary Committee on Administration and Local Government in the National Assembly.

She said the government has been insisting that its employees hand over academic credentials, particularly Form Four and Form Six certificates and professional certificates. The verification exercise started in October, last year, during the issuance of national identity cards. There are workers who heeded the directive, but others are yet to do so.

Alternatively, she said, in order to be fair in sacking the employees without certificates, the government has allowed them to submit their index numbers which will enable it to trace their examination results.

“With the index number, the government in collaboration with the National Examinations Council of Tanzania (NECTA), will be able to verify whether a worker has the genuine certificate or not,” she stated.

After completing the exercise of collecting the certificates, the next step would be evaluating the number of workers in government institutions and consider measures to be taken against deceitful workers who used fake certificates.

She noted that the exercise is designed to flush out cheats and remain with skilled personnel who were employed in accordance with their qualifications. The upshot is for the government to offer quality services.

So far, 1,595 public workers who had contributed to the existence of ghost workers have been punished, 16 among them were from nine government ministries and the remaining 1,564 were from local government authorities.

Some of the MPs who contributed to the report, including Ubungo lawmaker Saed Kubenea (CHADEMA) and Mbulu MP Fratei Massay (CCM), urged the government to fast track the verification of the certificates, arguing that the exercise has taken so long to complete. Ms Esther Mihawe, a member of the committee, who tabled the report, said the issue of ghost workers has been a big problem.