EAC FACES STAFF'SUNSET AGE' CRISIS 47 EMPLOYEES CLOCK 60 AND MUST RETIRE

Senior officials of theEast African Community (EAC) Secretariat in Arusha are silent on the looming exit of critical staff members due to mandatory retirement of its staff members.

Already 47 members of the employees at its headquarters in Arusha are expected to retire between now and 2017 after attaining 60 years of age which is compulsory for one to exit from the services of the Community.

Another large number will likely follow suit after that, a development which may cripple the operations of some departments and units before the regional organization is through with the rigorous recruitment of new staff.

Sources at the EAC head offices confided this recently that this will be the first time since the revival of the organization in the 1990s that many employees will have to exit almost at the same time.

"The headache facing our administrators is that they may not have recruited enough and capable people to replace those retiring ", said one official on condition of anonymity.

The EAC director of Human Resources Department Joseph Ochwada could not be reached last week for comment while those from the Directorate of Corporation Communication and Public Information were out of Arusha for official duties.

This paper had sought clarification following concerns raised since early this week by members of the East African Legislative Assembly (Eala) on the large number of EAC employees expected to retire soon.

The House Committee on General Purpose warned that it was very much concerned that a critical mass of members of the Secretariat were due to retire or complete their tenure of service with EAC by 2017.

"Some of the departments, directorates and sections may lose all their staff members at once", the Chairperson of the Committee Dr. Odette Nyiramilimo said.

She said when she was presenting the Committee's views on 2015/2016 budget estimates tabled last week that mass exodus may happen at a time some of the established offices were yet to be filled with the required personnel.

"The Committee is not aware of any plans to secure institutional memory and/or facilitate smooth and proper hand-over", she remarked.

The Committee's chairperson added that the problem was compounded by the 2015/2016 budget estimates which, according to her "do not adequately provide the hiring and orientation of new staff members".

She warned in affirmative:" Based on these, there exists a high risk that services offered by the Secretariat may be affected and the effectiveness of the Secretariat diminished during that period".

The Committee pleaded with the EAC Council of Ministers, which is the policy organ of the Community to work closely with the Secretary General to develop an exit and hiring plan that would offset the risks.

The Council should also consider to develop a transition period that will allow for extension or limited extension of current contracts to allow for continued effective operations of the Secretariat and proper hand over.

The Secretariat, is the executive arm of the Community and one of the three main organs of the EAC; the others being Eala and the East African Court of Justice (EACJ).

Unlike the latter two organs which became operational in 2001, the Secretariat was launched in the mid- 1990s and recruited fairly senior officials from the then three partner states; Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya.

Available statistics indicate that as of June last year, the EAC Secretariat had 231 employees, of whom six were executive staff, 69 professional, 46 general service staff, 84 project staff and 16 temporary employees.

Their figure had slightly dropped from 239 in June 2013.

The entire EAC headquarters had by June 30th last year, a total of 289 employees of whom 231 worked with the Secretariat, 34 Eala and 24 EACJ.

It could not be established if the latter two fairly young Community organs (Eala and EACJ) are affected by the problem of the aging staff.

Another EAC official said with the exception of the executive staff, all employees of the EAC and its organs have to retire on attaining the age of 60.

The executive employees are presidential appointees and besides the SG, the others are the four deputy secretaries general and Counsel to the Community (CTC), the chief legal adviser to the Community.

The senior positions, like heads of departments, directorates and sections are shared by the five member countries through some form of quota system that ensured each country had its senior official on board.