The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Jinja, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Uganda People’s Defence Forces-UPDF, has started recruiting 969 youths from all the districts in the Busoga sub-region.
The exercise kicked off in Jinja city before being rolled out in the rest of the districts during the course of this week. The candidates being recruited are part of the 13,000 shortlisted youths who applied to join the force via the online portal.
The public information officer of UPDF’s recruitment team in Busoga sub-region, Nathan Tumuhairwe, says that the exercise is largely smooth and the expected numbers are coming through.
Tumuhairwe, however, notes that there are recurrent challenges of impostors, posturing themselves under the identities of others in a bid to beat the screening processes. Others, he says, have presented fake documents, which do not align with their academic credentials.
Tumuhairwe also notes that, unlike the previous recruitment exercises where successful candidates were ferried in troop carriers, they will be transporting themselves to the Nakaseke-based training grounds this time round.
He says that they are issuing accreditation cards to all successful candidates, which will be presented to the trainers at Kaweweta training grounds for clearance.
However, some of the candidates who were disqualified cited foul play, claiming that the grounds for their dismissal from the training grounds were too minor compared to what they had excelled in.
One of the youths who spoke on condition of anonymity says that he suffered from ringworm infection during his early teenage which caused part of the skin to peel off, only to be disqualified on grounds of having a contagious skin disease.
He notes that the recruiting officers asked him to present a medical detailing the state of his skin, but he was unable to see a dermatologist on time.
Others raised the challenge of communication gaps, where they lacked information on whether their names were shortlisted or not.
But Tumuhairwe dismissed their allegations as baseless, noting that all the shortlisted candidates were contacted on time and notified about the recruitment centres.
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