Uganda’s Public Service Day: When the Backbone of the Nation Is Left to Break in Silence

 

 

By Isaac Christopher Lubogo

 

1. What Are We Celebrating—Really?

 

Today is Public Service Day.

 

But who are we clapping for?

And more importantly—who is clapping?

 

Are public servants celebrating this day with joy, or merely enduring it like any other—on empty stomachs, in overcrowded offices, using personal airtime to coordinate government programs, and praying that their transport refund is approved before December?

 

While government officials deliver speeches in polished suits, the teachers they claim to honor are marking scripts on cracked verandas. Health workers are improvising bandages in maternity wards with no running water. Police officers are fueling patrol motorcycles from their own meager wages. If this is a celebration, then perhaps the meaning of celebration has changed.

 

 

2. The Invisible Engine of the State

 

Public servants are the invisible engine of the state. They open the gates at ministries at dawn. They teach the children of both the rich and the poor. They immunize babies in storm-hit villages. They settle land disputes in fragile communities. They draft budgets, enforce law, clean offices, arrest robbers, nurse the sick, and even bury the dead in epidemics.

 

But how do we treat this engine?

 

Many of them live in structures that would violate the human rights of inmates. Teachers share one staff house with six colleagues. Nurses sleep in morgues because the hospital doesn’t have a proper dormitory. Agricultural officers are sent to distant districts without transport. Court clerks are transferred to remote areas without resettlement allowances. Cleaners, despite years of service, are still on short-term contracts. Askari positions—though critical—are among the least compensated in government payroll.

 

If they are the lifeblood of public service, why do they work as if they are liabilities?

 

 

3. Sacrifice or State-Sanctioned Exploitation?

 

Is this patriotism—or state-sanctioned exploitation?

 

Public servants are asked to be loyal, but loyalty has a price—and it’s not silence. Loyalty should be met with protection, appreciation, and empowerment.

 

The majority of Uganda’s civil servants earn far below the cost-of-living threshold. According to the Ministry of Public Service data (2023), most primary school teachers, junior medical staff, and administrative support workers earn below UGX 500,000 per month—in a country where the average rent in urban areas is UGX 250,000 and food inflation continues to rise.

 

While politicians increase their sitting allowances, civil servants sit on broken chairs. While high-ranking officials are flown out for treatment, government health workers administer care with no gloves or electricity. While elites get travel per diem in dollars, school inspectors have not been facilitated for field visits since 2019.

 

Can we honestly continue calling this “service”? Or has public service become a ritual of sacrifice with no reward?

 

 

4. The Tragedy of Demoralization

 

There is a silent epidemic in the public service: demoralization.

 

It is not measured by blood pressure or test kits, but by the look in the eyes of a midwife who hasn’t been paid in two months. By the long sigh of a teacher correcting 120 books with no red pen. By the tired hands of a cleaner scrubbing the office of a commissioner who has never once said “thank you.”

 

You hear it when a state attorney says, “We lost the case because we had no fuel to attend court.”

You see it when a police officer asks to borrow UGX 5,000 to take a sick child to the clinic.

 

You feel it when a senior inspector calls in sick—not because he is ill, but because the frustration has worn his spirit out.

 

Public servants are breaking. But they break silently—because no one listens when a civil servant cries.

 

 

5. Bureaucracy That Bleeds the Loyal

 

It is not just the low pay—it is also the painful process.

 

Delayed promotions. Stagnant salary scales. Unfair transfers. Unclear pension processes. Staff who’ve served for 20 years with no confirmed appointment. Officers still acting in positions for five years without being confirmed. Retirees chasing pensions for over six years.

 

Is it incompetence or deliberate indifference?

 

Some public servants die before they access their terminal benefits. Others are shuffled around the country like unwanted cargo. Meanwhile, those close to the corridors of power rise faster, earn more, and retire more comfortably.

 

This isn’t inefficiency. It’s injustice.

 

 

6. Rhetoric Without Reform: The Hallmark of the Day

 

Every June 23rd, Public Service Day is marked with themes like “Building Resilience in Public Institutions” or “Enhancing Citizen-Centered Service Delivery.”

 

But who are we fooling?

 

Resilience? Public servants are resilient by default—they work without tools, survive without motivation, and still show up.

Citizen-centered? How can you center citizens when your own public workers are marginalized?

 

The day has become a spectacle of empty rhetoric. And while speeches are prepared with care, the people they are about are still waiting for care packages.

 

 

 

7. What Should Public Service Day Stand For?

 

Public Service Day should not be a government showpiece. It should be a declaration of accountability, a renewal of national gratitude, and a blueprint for reform.

 

Introduce a national minimum wage to ensure no public servant lives below the poverty line.

 

Guarantee health insurance for all civil servants and their families.

 

Create safe housing for frontline workers—especially teachers, nurses, and police officers.

 

Digitize pension processing to eliminate unnecessary delays and bribery.

 

Make performance-based promotions transparent and accessible.

 

 

If we say public servants are essential, let us treat them as such—not just with applause, but with policies.

 

 

 

8. A Final Question to the Nation

 

So, as the speeches echo today and the banners flutter, let me ask:

 

What will you do tomorrow for the askari who guarded your office all year?

What will change for the nurse who walked 7 km to deliver a baby at 2 AM?

What will improve for the office cleaner whose contract was renewed—again—for only 3 months?

 

Or is today just another photo opportunity—while the spine of the nation keeps breaking in silence?

 

 

Conclusion: Let This Not Be a Ritual of Pretending

 

Public Service Day should not be a once-a-year masquerade.

It must become a call to conscience—a mirror held up to a state that has benefited from selfless labor and returned it with systemic neglect.

 

If we truly believe that civil servants are the backbone of Uganda, then let us not break their backs in silence.

 

Let today mark not another cycle of speeches—but the beginning of structural transformation.

Because without them, the state does not function.

And without dignity, service becomes servitude.

 

— Isaac Christopher Lubogo

SuiGeneris