Punish officials who abuse government vehicles - legislators

Lawmakers have directed the Ministry of Public Service to stop the abuse of government vehicles by civil servants.

Sometimes i have seen these vehicle work at night. Some even never park at the district. Should we assume that the district officials work at night. Most weekends, these vehicles are seen in town when the district offices is closed. Should we say that these officials do work extra hours off normal time?

Reacting to an ongoing public awareness campaign by this newspaper on the vice, the legislators yesterday expressed concern that public officials use the vehicles for personal gain. “The committee was concerned about the increasing reports by the Daily Monitor on the misuse of government vehicles by public servants,” said Mr Raphael Magyezi, the deputy chairperson of the Committee on Public Service and Local Government, in an interview with the Daily Monitor at Parliament yesterday.

He added: “Whereas the ministry officials tried to defend them, we reminded them of the policy in the Standing Orders on the use of public assets including vehicles. We have ordered the Ministry of Public Service to put up a task force to monitor the misuse of government vehicles outside office hours and excesses in terms of using vehicles for wrong purposes.”

On March 18, the Daily Monitor started a campaign highlighting the abuse of government vehicles. The legislators under whose docket the Ministry of Public Service falls, hailed the Daily Monitor for the initiative.

The Mukono Municipality Member of Parliament, Ms Betty Nambooze, said the committee will ask that the ministry considers suspending officials who misuse public vehicles on top of making them personally liable for repairs.
The parliamentary Local Government and Public Service Committee had, during a recent retreat with officials in Jinja, ordered the ministry to institute an urgent committee to monitor and punish civil servants who misuse government vehicles.

Available data indicates that government spends Shs100 billion annually on vehicle repair.
Some officials are reported to have pleaded that poor facilitation forces them to use the vehicles for private purposes.

However, the ministry agreed to remind all accounting officers to monitor all the vehicles in their departments.

An example of the local government vehicle being used for personal duties