The Occupational Competence Assessment & Certification Centre (OCACC) is to open five branches in Addis Abeba to improve accessibility to customers.
The request to the City Administration was first to establish the centre as an agency with five branches, but the city council ruled out that the works that the centre is running now could be done at the centre level, the five branches were allowed to be operational under the centre because of the work load at the central office.
“The registration that has been done at the centre will be done at the branch offices and no registration will be conducted at the central office,” says Girum Areda, the OCACC’s communications officer.
The five branches will be located in Arat Kilo, Mexico, Enkulal Fabrica, Kality, and Meganagna.
Until now, there have been two work processes at the centre, but the opening of the new branches creates a new work process called Documents & Certification. This will do the works of the registrar, which used to operate under the Assessment Service Preparation & Assessment Main Work Process.
The Research & Consultation Work Process, the third one, will go under the five branches with the consultation only to be done at the central level.
The works of the branches include choosing assessors and those to be assessed, assessing, giving ID cards and the issuance of temporary certificates.
“The structure at the centre and the number of customers it serves are not balanced,” says Girum. “Therefore, this restructuring will bring a balance between the service seekers and the service providers.”
The centre had a total of 102 employees. When the new branches become operational, the total number of employees in the centre, including branch offices, will be 464. Among these, 50 are supportive staff, like human resource administration, office administration, guards, drivers and cleaning workers.
In the centre, there will be 86 workers in the Assessment Service Preparation Work Process and 12 at the Documents & Certification Work Process. The branches will have 126 and 166 workers for these work processes, respectively.
The Centre has requested a budget of 56 million Br, but the city allowed only 46 million on the basis that the full human resource of the branches is not fulfilled. The budget for the centre will not be endorsed until the civil service completes the career structure of the offices. The budget for the central office for the fiscal year 2014/15 is 47 million Br – 13 million permanent budget, 24 million from internal revenues and 10 million capital budget. The Centre’s previous year budget was 23.3 million Br, out of which only 8.3 million was generated internally.
The centres will be housed in rented facilities, according to Girum, and they will soon start recruiting staff.
For the realisation of the human resources, there is a committee working towards the fulfilment of the required number of workers.
The centre tested 75,000 candidates in the 2013/14 fiscal year and this number is expected to grow, with factories and other organisations compelling their workers to be certified, as Girum said. The opening of the new branches will solve the crowding issue, which has been becoming increasingly problematic.
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