By Irene Kabakama
Records practitioners from the private sector and different Ministries, departments and Agencies met recently URA to discuss how to organize their industry and grow it. This year’s forum was held under the theme “leveraging records management for organization transformation,” and it brought together different MDAs, including the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Uganda People ‘s Defense Forces, Uganda Bureau Of Standards, National Social Security Fund, ICPAU, Uganda National Roads Authority(UNRA), Parliament of Uganda, National Identification & Registration Authority, Uganda Management Institute, and Kampala Capital City Authority(KCCA), among others.
Part of the key resolutions was to form an association to be headed by Teddy Latete, Manager Records and Registries at the URA, and she will be deputized by Winnie Nekesa Akullo, Manager of records at the National Social Security Fund (NSSF).
The decision to unite stemmed from the different challenges facing the industry, for example, limited access to documents due to the lack of a digitized system.
This was clearly highlighted in Ishta Nazziwa Kyambadde’s remarks, where she challenged the team to get aligned with the trend of digitization. Kyambadde, who was representing the URA Commissioner of Corporate Services, called on the records and archives professionals to look at bringing innovation to their institutions, adding that this will help them get more recognized rather than being sought when there is need for a document.
“The importance of the records officers may not be at the forefront of papers,” Kyambadde said.
Her call was re-echoed by Nekesa Winnie, the new association deputy, who testified that record teams at NSSF can ably compete with professionals at strategy level because of the different skills they possess.
She encouraged the team to always apply the best soft skills every time they interface with clients.
“This will enable clients to come back as well as be open for transformation because for the organization to transform, it has to start with people. In this way, we shall be able to stand up to the call and challenge ourselves to be better, said Nekesa.
In his address, Milton Owor, Head of Human Resource,NSSF, cautioned the practitioners to take the profession seriously and to always understand institutional strategy to ensure best service delivery.
He also implored them to be strategically aligned with the business and focus on the future by embracing digitization to be able to easily pick up new technology that they can leverage.
