Gov’t loses 7 billion annually on teachers with forged appointment letters – ESC

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT |  The Education Service Commission (ESC) has said that it is planning a countrywide validation exercise to sort out the challenge of teachers with forged appointment letters.

The Commission led by its chairman Prof. Dr. Samuel Lugoba was on Monday appearing before the Parliaments committee on Education alongside Ministry of Education officials over their budget requirements for next financial year were they decried the rampant cases of fake appointment letters.

According to the Permanent Secretary Ministry Asuman Lukwago, they lose 7 billion annually to people who are receiving salary as teachers and educators, but are actually teachers with forged appointment letters.

The commission says that they are shocked at where exactly the source of the appointment letters is but also blames it on a network of gangsters. Asuman says that the last exercise was done in some districts in Lango and Acholi region in 2019 and the revelation was massive with hundreds of cases. 

He says that they now plan to do a countrywide validation exercise that will take place in July to September pending funding. One billion is required per region to validate the appointment letter of teachers. 

Johnson Malinga, a member of the Commission says that they are investigating 5 cases of forged appointment letters in Soroti. He says that although the teachers are accessing pay, they are not in the education service database.

The chairperson of the commission Samuel Lugoba said that as it stands, they do not know the extent of the problem and the validation will help. He says that  the validation needs to be done for each school and needs to be done during holidays.

He says that their preliminary findings indicate that the minutes appointing the teachers are nonexistent. He says they have previously been limited by funds.

The committee chairperson Jacob Opolot asked the officials to bring to Parliament the fake appointment letters for futher scrutiny.

In the next financial year, the Ministry plans to recruit 2300 teachers.

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