The Ministry of Education and Sports has temporarily suspended the transfer and deployment of teaching and non-teaching staff with immediate effect.

This was announced in a notice issued on April 17, by the permanent secretary Ministry of Education and Sports, Ketty Lamaro.

According to Lamaro, the suspension has been issued to enable the office of the Auditor General efficiently carry out nationwide payroll audit.

The audit exercise which is expected to end in June is aimed at ascertaining the exact number of public officers including the teaching and non-teaching staff.

"In light of the above, the Ministry of Education and Sports has temporarily suspended the transfer and deployment of teaching and non-teaching staff effective April 17, 2023 until further notice to enable the auditor general's office carry out this exercise," Lamaro stated.

She added, "The purpose of this notice is to inform all the heads of institutions to inform their respective members of staff."

This year, the Ministry of Finance, embarked on an audit into the government payroll In a bid to rectify the recurrent challenges in remittances of pensions, gratuity and salaries of public servants.

The move came on the backdrop of concerns over increasing number of non-existent workers "ghost workers" in the public service who are illegally accessing government salaries and pensions.

Last month, the Minister for Public Service, Wilson Muruli Mukasa asserted that the finance ministry had undertaken the audit exercise to scrutinise the payroll so that they get accurate figures of people on the payroll.

"That will help government estimate and have an idea of how much money commitment can be made for salaries and other things. This will make government plan better so that these issues of salaries can be handled squarely." he told Monitor.