By Inyakuni Kennedy

Obongi

Obongi district local government is grappling with challenges of understaffing hence affecting service delivery to the local population. Health, education, production, and natural recourses among others are the major departments being hinted by shortage leading to undesirable performance of the respective sectors. Obongi district was created in 2019 from Moyo district has a total population of fifty-two thousand for nationals against 123 thousand south Sudan refugees who shares resources and services of the local government.

Mr. Lomurecuh Dominic, the acting obongi district health officer says the human resource is outdated compare to the growing population. “The current staffing level may not serve the population as required because it has grown and every day the population is growing. To mitigate the ministry has reviewed the staffing nom, and so it will be rolled out to have a clinical officer at every facility to provide quality health care services” he said.

He adds: “the nursing assistants have been phased off without replacement. Where at health center ii we are supposed to have nine staff, but most of our health center ii’s have only seven staff. The missing are the nursing assistants and we can not recruit because we have not been cleared”.
Lomurecuh also notes the ever decreasing finances which is a national concern and it’s affecting health service delivery because sometime the demand of the community is different which they are unable to provide due to limited resources. 

Mr. Opigo Johnson, the district production officer remarked that as a department the staffing level stands at 57%. According to him, an extension worker is required to serve five hundred farmers in a year which is not the case in obongi district due to understaffing challenges. He highlighted the diminishing funding for the department of agriculture, inadequate transport facilities for extension workers to move in order to serve farmers, and poor seed quality as contributing factors to low level of production and productivity in obongi district.


Mr. Unzimai Henry, the obongi District Natural Resource Officer

Mr. Unzimai Henry, the obongi District Natural Resource Officer says beside the need to bridge the human resource gap, there is need to enhance the budget of natural resource department for a effective service delivery. “We have four sectors one is environment which look at wetland management, we have another sector for forestry that looks at forest resource management, we have physical planning that looks at sustainable urbanization, and lastly we have land sector which is looking at land titling, land registration and community awareness about land management. So all these sectors in a year our total budget is not more than fifty-two million as a department”Mr. Unzimai remarked.

He adds that out of the UGX: 52 million budget as a department, 50% comes from the local revenue generated in the district. According to Unzimai, government not prioritize issues environment which he says requires an urgent attention.

Mr. Idraku Felix Abraham, principle education officer obongi district said understaffing is to be blamed for the poor performance in schools in the district. He said teacher –pupil ratio in obongi stands at 1:78 instead of 1:53. “For us in education even if classrooms are not there (structures where the learners can) if you have teachers learning can take place even under tree. But when you have limited number of teachers, you can not expect efficient and effective learning to take place” Mr. Abraham said.He adds: “this is compounded with the reduction in funding by UNHCR which has affected teachers being paid by windle international because there is notification not to extend contracts, and if this happens our teacher-pupil ratio will worsen”.

However, Idraku noted the urgent need to intervene in construction of staff accommodation which is a great challenge affecting most of the  facilities in the district resulting into poor performance because time wastage in moving from home to school.

COVER PHOTO: Lomurecuh Dominic, acting DHO obongi district By Inyakuni Kennedy