Kabale District Local Government is set to conduct a physical head count of all civil servants from October 26 to November 3, 2026, in a move aimed at eliminating ghost workers, updating the payroll and verifying staffing levels.
The exercise will cover employees in all 12 lower local governments, including health workers, primary and secondary school teachers, non-teaching staff, tertiary institution employees, technical staff in sub-counties and town councils, as well as workers at the district headquarters.
In a circular dated October 12, 2026, Kabale Chief Administrative Officer Robert Mugabe directed all staff to appear physically for verification under the new Human Capital Management (HCM) system.
The exercise is also intended to establish the actual number of employees against the approved staffing structure.
The verification will be conducted from 9am to 5pm at Kabale District Rukiko Hall and respective sub-county and town council headquarters.
“All staff are required to present themselves physically for the head count. No staff shall be counted by proxy,” the circular states.
Employees have been directed to present their original documents and copies of their National Identity cards, appointment letters, confirmation letters, posting instructions or latest deployment letters, academic certificates, staff identification cards and payslips for the last three months.
The district has warned that employees who fail to participate without providing a justifiable written explanation risk being deleted from the government payroll.
Heads of departments, health facility in-charges, sub-county chiefs, senior assistant secretaries, township officers and head teachers have been tasked with mobilising staff under their supervision to participate in the exercise.
The head count comes amid investigations by the Inspectorate of Government into the district’s human resource office over allegations of ghost workers on the government payroll.
Kabale Resident District Commissioner Godfrey Katamba said the Inspectorate had been following reports of suspected ghost workers in the district.
Katamba said the district currently employs more than 4,000 civil servants, despite an earlier special audit and employee validation exercise conducted by the Office of the Auditor General across 367 government entities.
He said the investigations should help establish whether the district’s payroll accurately reflects the number of people employed and receiving government salaries.
In its 2022/2023 report, released on January 10, 2024, the Auditor General identified thousands of irregular and ghost workers on the public service payroll, resulting in an estimated financial loss of more than Shs53 billion annually.
Katamba said heads of departments had a responsibility to regularly verify staff lists and ensure that payroll records reflected the actual number of employees under their supervision.
He added that departmental heads should be held accountable for irregularities originating from their respective offices.
He welcomed the Inspectorate of Government’s investigations, saying they were in line with President Museveni’s call for a corruption-free public service.
CUE IN RDC KATAMBA… ON INVESTIGATIONS… RR/ENG//
