Minister of Internal Affairs, Maj. Jeje Odong
The Minister of Internal Affairs,General Jeje Odong and National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) last week were summoned by the Defence and Internal Affairs Committee to explain reported cases of rampant irregularities and the progress to the registration to learners in schools across the country.
The members of the committee chaired by Mityana district MP, Judith Nabakooba, observed that the entire exercise of registration of pupils or students aged 5 to 16 years in both public and private schools is tinted with illegality.
The committee members raised this alarm while interfacing with General Jeje Odong.
MPS said that there should be investigations into the funds given to NIRA to conduct this registration exercise in schools since there are complaints related to discrepancies in payment of NIRA enrolment officers.
Nabakooba noted that the exercise which started on 5th June is supposed to be completed by 31st August but they are suppressed it lacks guidelines to date.
She questioned why NIRA did not recruit enrollment officers for this exercise from the areas where these schools are located so as to cut on the costs.
Ntoroko County MP, Rwemurikya Ibanda, said that most of the machines being used for the exercise are old and freezing.
MPS quizzed the minister to make them understand why the enrollment officers are concentrating in government schools yet the project is meant for both private, government schools and institutions so as to enable government establish credible and functional register for learners.
School going children waiting to be registered by National Identification Numbers (NIN) officials recently.
The vice person of the committee, Kezekie Mbugo, blamed NIRA for considering the registration of more number of learners from 24,542 schools to 2,858 schools ,saying that this could invite ghost schools again .
However, Jeje Odong defended the exercise having started in government schools, saying that government wanted to weed out ghost schools which have benefiting ghost schools.
25.2 billion shillings was provided for the exercise