Parliament seeks to restructure with growing number of MPs

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Parliament plans to review its organizational structure to cater for the growing number of legislators and workload. According to the bid document seen by URN, the Parliamentary Commission seeks to engage a professionally qualified and experienced consultancy firm to conduct an institutional review with the view of making the Parliamentary Service more responsive to the demands of various stake holders.

The Commission indicates that a number of requests to restructure departments or functions have been presented to enable effective service delivery and meet the current challenges like number of MPs and current environment among others.

“There has been an increase in the number of Members of Parliament, from 385 in 2012 to the current 457 in 2020 which puts more pressure on the systems, structures and offices in the provision of the requisite services,” reads the document.

The Commission also notes that the volume of work handled by Parliament has increased over the years which may require a review of the institutional strategy, structures, systems and staffing among other areas for the purpose of engendering improvement in service delivery.

The commission says that currently, several other requests have been presented to the office of the Clerk to Parliament to split departments to ease service delivery. Some of these include the Department of Official Report and Department of Research Services among others.

According to Parliament, following an earlier review, a number of new offices have been introduced on a piece meal basis without revising the entire establishment, systems and procedures and this may have presented a staffing problem and its attendant consequences.

A review conducted in 2011 led to the creation of the Office of General Counsel and the restructuring of the former Department of Legal and Legislative Services to form two departments under the Division of the Office of the General Council.  The Commission indicates that they now seek a wholesome and comprehensive review of the entire organizational systems, structures, functions and human capacity to deliver expected services.

Hellen Kaweesa, the Deputy Director of Communications and Public Affairs (CPA) Department of Parliament says there is need for the review for the growth of Parliament, changing trends, growth in the number of MPs, research and study.

“The number of Members is growing which comes with more workload. Now when we talk of issues like research, you may need to build a strong research department and this is part of restructuring. Of course, you then need to employ more researchers,” Kawesa said.

There are up to 20 Departments and political offices in Parliament.

******

URN