It is possible to reduce informality in Uganda’s human capital. 

‘…even these high-level economists are telling us lower high school economics…things we should have graduated from ages ago…informality is very easy to manage…shouldn’t be a subject of this level of national economy debate.’

Mzee BSN was taken aback by the findings of the Poverty Status Report (PSR) 2021 by the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development (MoFPED) disseminated Thursday February 9, 2023. https://www.finance.go.ug/publication/poverty-status-report-2021

Notable among the findings in the PSR was the prevalence of informality especially in the job market. And this, inter alia, accounts for the low levels of savings and social security, leading to individual and social vulnerability.

‘Is it because Uganda has no substantive ministry of labour and human capital development? What explains this?

Since we had no specific answer, Mzee narrated to us his experience of a structured, formalised labour system from an economy where he worked for decades with a manufacturing multinational. Since the labour laws there prohibited employing people informally (casual workers) for over six months, it became prudent to formalise this category of labour.

Notable of these were the factory workers, construction site porters and domestic workers. With minimum wage legislation, these essentials workers were formalised into salaried employees. Everyone is salaried.

One successful case Mzee cites is a Youth Formation Centre run by a religious congregation. The centre seeks and signs outsourcing employment contracts with factories, construction companies, hotels and homes, where it deploys its workers under supervision of the centre’s own management.

It all works thus: the centre advertises for workers, with a minimum level of education commensurate with the workplace. The apprentices, as they are called at the centre, have formal employment terms with appointment letters, probation, confirmation, promotion, training, social security and gratuity.

Besides the relevant skills for each industry, the centre has a soft skills formation curriculum which includes ethics, communication skills, social skills, basic leadership, culture, norms and value systems, teamwork and other human virtues.

Besides this, there is a personal growth programme for those wishing to further their formal education, through weekend programmes with schools and colleges.

The workers are accommodated at the centre. Each worker has a day off from their workplace, on a rosta that enables those on ‘pass’ as they call it, to do ‘housekeeping’ at the centre, including preparing dinner for those at work.

Each worker is dropped at 5.30 in the morning at their workplace and picked at 6.30 in the evening.  Apprentices only leave the centre when they get married and start families, but stay in their respective work teams. One interesting innovation by this centre is what they term Domestique Executive. This is a service that replaced the traditional, live-in-maid as we know it here.

The centre recruits both senior four leavers, and those with specialised training from home economics and catering schools. At the centre, they undergo further training and skilling in such areas as child nutrition, child hygiene and health, child psychology, child mentoring and character formation, first aid at home, basic security alertness, secrecy and confidentiality, ethics and honesty, etiquette, courtesy and decorum, domestic appliance management, interior and exterior housekeeping, preparation of various dishes and cuisines.

The centre does the marketing to homes, restaurants and hotels for its services. And the demand is insatiable.

‘You see, informality is very easy to eliminate, especially where it matters most: the lower cadre workers, who form the majority yet are vulnerable if left to unstructured market forces’, Mzee concludes.

And this should no longer form part of a national economics status report. It was resolved ages ago.

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