Gomba District Clients Charter
FOREWORD
Gomba District Council Clients’ Charter is in line with the strategic objective of Public Service Reform Programme that aims at improving service delivery and accountability in public institutions in Uganda.
The Clients Chatter is intended to act as a guide for improving public service performance and accountability to the public. It is therefore a social contract between Gomba District Local Government and the people that we serve.
This social contract has been developed through wider consultation with stakeholders that include Political Leaders, Opinion Leaders, Technical Staff and others. It shall help the people of Gomba to hold public servants accountable for their actions and inactions and also provide a platform for feedback and dialogue between the District Administration and the General Public.
As Gomba District Council, we wish to thank H.E the President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni for granting Gomba District status and for his visionary leadership that has enable Gomba and the entire country to make visible gains in all aspects of development.
The District Council is grateful to all those that have participated in formulation of this charter. Special thanks go to the Ministry of Public Service for the sensitization workshop about the client’s charter that was so helpful in the formulation of this great tool.
Lastly, let me take this opportunity as District Chairperson to acknowledge council members, Technical Staff and the Chief Administrative Officer for the tireless effort and spirit of teamwork that enabled the development of the charter
Yours in service
…………………
Hon: Semu Abdul Kyabangi
Chairperson Gomba District Local Government
PREAMBLE
I have the pleasure to present Gomba District Clients Charter that is aimed at helping citizens to demand for quality services and hold public servants accountable for their action and inactions in the implementation of government programs intended to develop the people.
The charter takes note of the cherished mission, vision, principles of service, key result areas and targets planned for the next three financial years as approved in the 5 year development plan.
It also includes clients, their rights or expectations and obligations, how to get feedback from clients, management of complaints and the district’s commitment to quality service delivery.
All this is aimed at the application of Result Oriented Management (ROM) which will enable the district to achieve its mission and vision through formulation of strategic objectives, identifying key out puts and setting key performance indicators.
Therefore I encourage everyone to use this charter as a benchmark of performance in Gomba District Local Government.
For God and My Country
……………………………
Batambuze Abdu
Chief Administrative Officer
DEFINITION OF KEY TERMS
Clients: These are the various categories of people that deal with an organisation either directly or indirectly.
Charter: This means an agreement between two parties that is aimed at creating mutual understanding between the two parties.
Values: These are tenets upon which good conduct is measured in a particular society.
Principles: These are doctrines or the main beliefs of a particular organisation.
Rights: This means the privileges that anyone can enjoy by virtue of belonging to a particular society.
Responsibilities: These are duties that a member of any society has to fulfil as an obligation to that organisation.
Enquiries: This can be termed as any request for information by a client.
Feedback: This response to an enquiry.
GOMBA DISTRICT LOCAL GOVERNMENT
CLIENTS SERVICE CHARTER
1.0 ABOUT US
Gomba District is one of the districts in central region also known as Buganda Region. It was formed in 2010 breaking away from Mpigi District. The district headquarters are located Kanoni Town Council 65km From Kampala.
The district is made up of four Sub counties of Mpenja, Kabulasoke, Kyegonza and Maddu, and Kanoni Town Council. The District has a total size area of 1,541.13 sq km which is about 0.07% of the country’s size. Out of the total area, 218.9 Sq. Km is occupied by water. The district has 37 parishes and 289 villages.
Gomba District borders with districts of Butambala in North East and East, Mityana in the North, Mubende in the North West, Kalungu to the South and South West and Sembabule to the West. The district headquarters is about 85 Km from Kampala, the capital city of Uganda.
According to the 2014 Population and Housing Census, the district has a total population of 160,075 of whom 81,520 are male and 78,555 are females. Its population density is 230 persons per Sq. Km and it has an annual growth rate of 1.43% per annum. In pastoral areas of Maddu sub-county the density tends to show a decline. The sex distribution of population is about 49% female and 51% male.
1.1 OUR VISION AND MISSION
Our vision is for ‘a prosperous community with all households accessing basic needs of life and increased income within 10 years’.
Our mission is to ‘coordinate delivery of services focusing on national and local priorities for equitable, balanced and sustainable development’.
Our Overall Goal is to ‘increase household incomes and improve quality of their lives, so as to elevate their overall standards of living’.
1.2 CORE VALUES AND PRINCIPLES
We shall provide user friendly services by putting all our clients at the forefront with openness to dialogue and feedback for purposes of progressive improvement.
CORE VALUES
We shall be guided by the following core values;
Clients Focus and Responsiveness
Our services shall endeavour to meet the client needs and expectations, and their interests will always be our first priority. We shall attend to our clients’ issues, suggestions, ideas, requests and constructive criticism in a timely and friendly manner.
Quality
High quality client care is our primary objective and driving factor. We pride ourselves in the provision of high quality services.
Equity
Our services ensure equal access to all public services to all individuals without discrimination at all.
Respect
We respect all cultures and traditions of the people of Gomba District and Uganda at large. We respect individual identity and autonomy of our partners in line with the professional code of conduct and national policies.
Objectivity
Council decisions will be professional, based on merit and other codes of good governance.
Professionalism integrity and ethics
We shall perform our work with the highest level of professionalism, integrity, honesty, openness, and trust as enforced in the public service code of conduct and our individual professional codes of conduct.
Effective Communication
Wes shall promote effective two-way communication in all aspects of public service delivery.
Selflessness
The district staff shall act solely in terms of public interest without considering any personal financial or material benefits and gains. That is service above self.
Professional Development
We value learning, coaching, feedback and mentoring by taking responsibility to gain the required development to meet our clients’ needs.
Diligence
The staff of the district shall be careful and assiduous in the execution of their official duties assigned.
Transparency and Accountability
We shall maintain a high level of efficiency and effectiveness in the development and management of Gomba District. We believe in accountability for our performance not only to the political and administrative system, but above all to the people of Gomba.
Decency
The district staff shall present themselves in a respectable manner that generally conforms to morally acceptable standards and values of society.
PRINCIPLES
Our guiding principles aim at providing the highest affordable quality services and these include;
Leadership
We believe that effective leadership should be structured, present and accessible. Our leadership strategy is based on a practice and overall management level support network which provides both personal and teamwork motivation direction and accountability.
Teamwork
The district is composed of a team from different professions. Therefore we believe in teamwork to reinforce the services from different disciplines all aiming at improving the overall service delivery.
Decentralization
We acknowledge and shall support service delivery within the frame work of decentralization and the future reforms there in.
Partnership
The private sector shall be seen as complementary to public service in terms of increasing geographical access to public services, the scope and scale of services provided.
Information sharing
We believe that consistency in standards, protocols, information flow and procedures is essential in maintaining and improving the quality of our services.
Gender Sensitive and Responsive Service Delivery
A gender sensitive and responsive public service delivery system shall be strengthened through mainstreaming gender in planning and implementation of public service.
Human Rights Approach
The district will ascertain that the right to access public services and public information of all members of society are respected at all times.
Loyalty
The district shall be committed to the policies and programmes of government at the national and local levels.
2.0 KEY RESULT AREAS
The key result areas of Gomba DLG are;
a) Strategic planning, resource mobilization and budgeting
b) Human resource capacity development and technical support
c) Health services improvement through immunization and preventative means.
d) Improving production and marketing.
e) Improved performance in the education and sports sector.
f) Monitoring and Evaluation of all government program and projects
g) Improvement in water coverage and sanitation
h) Improvement in the road network in the district
i) Revitalizing agriculture in Gomba
j) Reduction in HIV/AIDS through mainstreaming.
k) Reduction of poverty through community empowerment
l) Identification and collection of revenues.
m) Timely accountability for all revenues.
n) Environmental mainstreaming
3.0 OUR COMMITMENT
We are committed to providing high quality public services to the people of Gomba and the wider community.Our Client Service Charter sets out the service standards that you can expect from us and how we will deliver these services to you.
3.1 SERVICE STANDARDS
What are our service standards?
Service to our clients is paramount. We aim to provide you with the highest level of assistance across our range of public services and programmes.We have set the following service standards so that members, the public, development partners and the wider community know what to expect when dealing with us.
We are committed to:
• Providing excellent client service and care
• Improving our processes and procedures
• Delivering timely, accurate and efficient services and
• Looking for new ways to provide better services for our clients and the wider community.
We strive to always treat clients fairly and honestly. As a result, our services to clients aim to be:
• Efficient
• Accurate
• Reliable.
• Timely
• Professional
• Courteous, and
• Fair.
Our staffs aim to:
• Be accessible
• Provide accurate and meaningful information, and
• Accept and respond to enquiries.
4.0 SERVICE STANDARDS FOR EVERY DEPARTMENT
Administration
We shall
• Monitor and evaluate all government programs quarterly
• Manage human resources efficiently
• Motivate all district employees
• Disseminate district information
• Manage the district’s public relations
• Manage all district documents
• Coordinate all district activities quarterly
• Document and store all district assets.
• Manage employee salaries and benefits monthly.
• Open up linkages between the district and other government agencies.
• Maintain a mutual relationship with non-state players.
• Procure public assets quarterly.
• Dispose public assets annually
Production and marketing
We shall
• Mobilize and sensitize farmers to embrace operation wealth creation.
• Provide advisory services to all farmers on crops and livestock quarterly.
• Vaccinate all livestock against vaccinable diseases every quarter.
• Promote food security and household in the villages of Gomba district.
• Create plant clinics and demonstration gardens in every sub county.
• Train farmers on disease and pests management in both livestock and crops quarterly.
• Register and closely monitor all SACCOs in the district quarterly.
• Empower farmers to shift from substance farming to large scale mechanized agriculture.
• Closely monitor fishing activities on Lake Wamala and promote aquaculture.
• Carry out livestock disease control and surveillance quarterly.
• Establish coffee nurseries at sub county level to enable farmers access coffee seedling for planting.
• Integrate faming activities with environmental and land management issues.
Education and Sports
We shall,
• Conduct school inspection on quarterly basis.
• Improve the teacher- pupil ratio to 1 teacher to 50 pupils By 2018
• Improve the pupil – desk ratio to 1desk to 4 pupils by 2018
• Decrease the failure rate by 15% annually.
• Increase students passing in 1st grade in PLE by 15% annually.
• Improve the pupil – class room ratio to 1 classroom to 50 pupils by 2018
• Participate in national games and sports events annually.
• Construct 3 staff houses annually
• Construct 3 classroom blocks annually.
• Construct 5 pit latrines in schools annually.
• Coordinate PLE exams and ensure that they are free from malpractices.
Community Based Services
We shall,
• Conduct gender mainstreaming meetings and workshops quarterly.
• Conduct sensitization meetings for vulnerable groups like PWDs, youth and women quarterly.
• Carry out community mobilization and empowerment on income generating activities to eradicate poverty quarterly.
• Map and register all OVCs in the district annually
• Mobilize communities to form 5 groups in every sub county for community development through Community Driven Development (CDD) annually.
• Inspect workplaces and educate employers and employees on labour laws quarterly.
• Attend to juvenile delinquent cases quarterly.
• Establish a remand home by 2018.
Health
We shall,
• Upgrade Kanoni HCIII to hospital by 2018
• Immunise all children bellow 5 years annually.
• Reduce the HIV prevalence from 7.2 to 3.2 by 2018.
• Increase latrine coverage from 45% to 85% by 2018
• Conduct weekly disease surveillance.
• Conduct quarterly Health management Committee meetings.
• Enrol 80% of our HIV+ Clients on ART by 2018.
• Carry out routine supervisory visits at all health centres.
• Carry out regular immunization against immunizable diseases.
• Recruit and train more VHTs across the entire district.
Works and Technical Services
Water
We shall,
• Dig 20 valley water dams by 2018.
• Dig 5 deep boreholes annually.
• Create and training 5 water user committees annually.
• Rehabilitate boreholes and shallow wells annually.
• Carry out water quality testing regularly.
• Carry out sanitation improvement campaigns in 5 villages annually.
• Dig 5 shallow wells annually.
• Improve safe water coverage from 65%to 88% by 2018.
Roads
• Upgrade 2 roads annually from earth to murram.
• Carry out swamp raising on 4 spots annually
• Open 2 roads annually.
• Carry out maintenance on all district roads.
• Repair and maintain district road unit equipment.
• Submit reports to MDAs regularly.
Civil
• Develop BOQs for all district construction according to national standards.
• Supervise and monitor all constructions.
• Carry out operation and maintenance on government facilities.
Finance
We shall,
• Asses tax payers annually
• Undertake routine revenue collection
• Prepare and submit financial and accountability reports quarterly and annually.
• Issue trading licences annually.
• Increase local revenue collection by 50% by 2018
• Keep updated books of account.
Environment
We shall,
• Rehabilitate all degraded wetlands by 2017.
• Plant 2000 trees annually.
• Replant trees in degraded forest reserves.
• Manage land use in Gomba district.
• Collect revenue from forest users on routine basis.
• Coordinate LAVEMP II activities in Gomba district.
• Physically plan 5 Rural Growth Canters by 2018
Planning Unit
We shall,
• Compile and process the district LLG annual and quarterly work plans.
• Compile and submit quarterly OBT progress reports.
• Coordinate LGMSDP projects and activities.
• Prepare and submit LGMSDP accountabilities
• Coordinate the annual assessment of all district departments, sectors and lower local governments.
• Compilation of annual district profile.
• Coordinate national census activities in the district.
• Coordinate NGO activities in the district.
• Maintain an updated district statistical data bank.
• Integrate population matters in the planning process.
Statutory Bodies
Council
We shall,
• Conduct 8 council sittings annually.
• Conduct 8 standing committee meetings annually.
• Celebrate 5 national public holidays.
• Conduct 12 Executive Committee meetings annually.
• Carry out exchange visits with other districts annually.
District Service Commission
• We shall appoint people to hold office on merit depending on the need.
• Handle all disciplinary cases without fear or fever as they emerge.
• Make timely reports to PSC, ESC, HSC and the district Council quarterly.
• Confirm all staffs that are due in service.
Public Accounts Committee
• Carry out 6 PAC meetings annually.
• Cause Public Officer to account for all the money spent.
• Ensure value for money of all activities undertaken.
District Land Board
• Establish a land data bank by 2018.
• Raise revenue from land transactions in the district.
• Survey and gazette all land belonging to public institutions in the district by 2018.
Internal Audit
• Audit all departments at the district quarterly.
• Audit all LLGs quarterly.
• Audit all government programmes like NAADS quarterly.
• Audit all government institutions quarterly.
• Produce management letters after every auditing session and cause people to account.
• Visit all district projects to ensure value for money.
• Inspect the district payroll monthly.
4.0 OUR CLIENTS
Gomba District Local Government Clients include the following;
1. Government Ministries and Agencies
2. All partners in service delivery
3. Uganda Local Government Association.
4. All residents of Gomba district
5. Internal clients (Employees)
6. Service providers such as Contractors, Suppliers and Consultants
7. All security agencies
8. Civil Society Organizations
9. Community health workers (VHTs)
10. Traditional leaders
11. Religious leaders
12. The media
13. Other Local Governments (Districts and Municipalities and Authorities)
4.1 CLIENTS RIGHTS
• A Right to Service:
Our clients are entitled to quality services in accordance with the public services regulations and guidelines.
• A Right to Information:
Our clients have a right to access relevant service related information in line with the standard regulations and guidelines.
• Non-Discrimination:
Our clients shall not be discriminated against on grounds of political affiliation, disability, race, age, sex, social status, economic status, diseases, ethnicity, nationality, or other such ground.
• Right to participation:
Our clients have a right to participate or be represented in development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of public service delivery.
• Right to be treated with dignity:
Our clients should be treated with respect and courtesy and have their dignity protected.
• Timely service:
Our clients have a right to be attended to in a timely manner.
4.2 CLIENT RESPONSIBILITIES
As a valued client, it is your responsibility to abide by any responsibilities set out under:
• The Constitution Of the Republic of Uganda
• Any District By-law
• Any licence, contract or agreements,
• Any memorandum of understanding
• Applicable laws and legislation, and
• Pay taxes promptly.
5.0 COMMUNICATION WITH CLIENTS
Communicating with our clients is of significant importance to us. We work hard to increase the understanding of public service and maintain two-way communication with our clients.
We aim to:
• Provide simple and clear information in plain English or Luganda
• Consult with clients about issues that the district faces
• Create opportunities for dialogue between clients and the district.
• Make it easy for you to communicate with and provide information to us, and
• Make information available for free upon request or through publications.
5.1 CODE OF CONDUCT
• As public servants, we are a signatory to the Public Service Code of Conduct and our individual professional codes of conduct. We pledge to abide by both.
6.0 YOUR CONCERNS AND COMPLAINTS
We value our relationships with clients and aims to resolve complaints and disputes to the satisfaction of all our clients.
Our Complaints Handling and Dispute Resolution procedures are available to all aggrieved members of society and aim to ensure:
• Our dealings with you are fair and transparent
• Clients know their rights
• Complaints and disputes are dealt with quickly, and
• Clients are kept informed about the progress and outcomes of their complaint or dispute.
Our staff will provide any complainant with all reasonable assistance when formulating or lodging a complaint.
6.1 GENERAL ENQUIRIES
You can contact us by phone, email or letter. You can even make an appointment to meet with The Chief Administrative Officer, District Chairperson, The Deputy Chief Administrative Officer or our District Information Officer.
When contacting us by phone, we aim to respond to you either at the first point of contact or within one (1) working day.
We will respond to all other correspondence, including email, and letter, within seven (7) days.
If we cannot respond to your query within this timeframe, we will acknowledge your communication, let you know why we cannot fully respond and give you an appropriate time when you can expect a more detailed response.
7.0 OUR PLEDGE
We pledge to
• Make it easy for you to contact us
• Help you to access public services
• Tell you about your rights and responsibilities
• Be polite and respect your views without discrimination over sex, age, culture, disability, religion etc.
• Protect your personal information and only use it for official purposes.
• Give you an opportunity to participate in decision making.
• Tell you if you are not eligible for a particular service and why?
• Provide you with any advice or support that is available.
8.0 FEEDBACK
We take our client service standards seriously and welcome feedback and suggestions from clients and the community about the Charter or any other aspect of our services.
You can send your feedback to Gomba District Local Government P.O. Box 76, Mpigi Uganda