Report on field attachment carried out at Mbale City Council

Abstract

The field attachment was conducted in Mbale City in a period of two months. The main service provided by the government entity includes; registration of business enterprise, community development work in terms of sensitization about malaria, parish and revenue collection. As an internee, I had to participate in all these critical activities. In the first week of arrival, the main activity was Induction or Orientation to the workplace and to fellow interns. This allowed me to understand the nature of the team members I had to work with but it also fostered better cohesion. As team members we became accustomed to accomplishing our assigned tasks for the week but also in conducting simple administrative duties. The key tasks assigned were writing meetings, these entailed attending community stakeholder meetings and being able to listen, take note of different views with resolutions agreed upon. Management information system integration was an area of active tasks, I really learnt how to use the system and also update it. In terms of accountancy tasks revolved around source document filling in, transferring the information into the vote book and analyzing how we were spending in regards to the votes. A key challenge that I encountered was the heat whilst conducting field work. The limited presence of desktop computers was also a key challenge, an addition they were moments when the pressure from community members was too much especially when distributing mosquito nets. The recommendations to students doing internship is that they should read about key aspects of government accounting prior to arriving, this will help them acclimatize to the records much faster, and to the university , in particular the lecturers who teach accounting there is need to train students also on how to prepare government accounts and the entire vote system.