The dark side of african archives 2

The Dark Side of African Archives, A Case of Jinja District Archives-2015
Mugume Arnold (B. Records and Archive Management, Makerere University-
Uganda):mugumearnold25@blogspot.com
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THE DARK SIDE OF AFRICAN ARCHIVES
A Case of Jinja District Archive
Introduction
Records and Archives management practices, like many other disciplines and
practices in Africa was born of the onset of the Colonial time in the 20th Century. Records
are any recorded information created, maintained, and used by organizations/individuals
in transaction of any business. They do play a grate role of evidence in business
transaction or help in decision-making process in the day-to-day business activities.
Archival work in Africa is mostly done on a low scale due to inefficiency of the set up
polices that governs the duties of Archivists. This leads to low productivity in the various
activities that should be carried out. Most archives are stored in the basements of
administrative buildings and they are ever neglected because they are seen as a waste
hence the low attention given to them. African governments have been seen transitioning
from time to time, from pre-colonial rule to pre- independence and independence and all
the various governments have been producing administrative records time to time and
these records do help for reference purposes for example the issue of national, tribal, and
inter-national boundaries always have been settled by the Pre- Colonial masters, the case
presents when Uganda and Kenya were fighting over the disputed Migingo island on
`Lake Victoria (Jack Shaka, 2013 Migingo Island : Kenya or Uganda Territory- Journal
of Conflictology). The Island its between the two countries and every side its claiming for
the ownership hence it took both governments to seek help from there colonial masters
(The British) which presented the copies of the maps showing who rightfully owns the
island. What does this explain? It explains that without any document that could provide
evidence as a fact, the two countries could be in bloodshed.
It was the evening of 7th May 2015 I and a team from the University of Michigan(USA)
met in Jinja for a two months project of “Jinja District Archive Preservation Project”. We
went to see the site at the district headquarters and to our surprise; the archives were
stored in the basement of the building that floods whenever it rains heavily. This led to

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the deterioration of the various archives of great importance. The place had no ventilators
hence there was no outlet of the bad odor that was coming from the deteriorating
documents. The following day we started off work by getting the wet boxes on the lower-
bottom shelves and spreading the contents on the table in our main sorting room and the
council room that were both provided by the District Records Officer, Mr. George
Nabida. Drying the documents was a difficult task, but we did our best. It took a great
time to get wet files dried, which interfered the project time frame. Most files were eaten
up by ants and wasps harbored in the various corners of the archive. These files were not
classified and the transfer forms on them were not corresponding with the documents in
the archival boxes that were provided by the ministry of Local government under the
government of Uganda. Various files of current years ranging from 1990s-2013 were the
most affected files since they were just dumped in the archival rooms and yet they were
supposed to be in the records center.
We started by categorizing files in different categories of ADM- Administration, JLOS-
Justice Low Order and Security, FIN- Finance, HRM- Human Resource Management,
AGR- Agriculture, IND- Industry, POP- Population, PUW- Public Works, HEA- Health,
MIG- Migration, WLF- Wildlife and Forestry, P&T- Posts & Telegraphs, MISC-
Miscellaneous, Maps and Lands. Various files and documents of various departments
among others of the pre-colonial, pre-independence and after independence are the
collections in the Jinja District Archives and these include files of the then Busoga
African Local Government, Protectorate governments records, Applications for firearms
records, Busoga District Governments records, Agricultural records, Complaints,
Enquiries and Petitions records, Court cases and confidential records, Holidays and
celebration records, Maps for buildings, schools, factories, Land and housing application
forms records, Licenses to sell and buy liquor and Licenses to hunting wild game etc.
among others. These and other more files are greatly useful to a great number of people
like students, teachers, examiners and researchers.
The first catalogue, the team entered690 files in the computer in one day and it was a
break-through that inspired us to move on for greater achievement.

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Lack of knowledge on records management has led many records of important use to
deteriorate in basements of various administrative buildings. Little attention given to
them makes them redundant and vulnerable to all sought of destructions like termites,
rodents and wasps. For Jinja District Archive, Mr. Nabidda George the District Records
Officer narrated to us the hard times the records go through from the time of there
creation to there archival process/destruction. He further narrates that “Many people
ignore the use of these records and archives, some of them just take them for granted that
there just minor papers, not until they come for their pension claims that’s when they
realize the use of these records and his services as a Records Officer.
During the course of classifying and Sub- categorizing of the various archives, the
group was joined by other students of Michigan University who were once in Uganda
two years ago (2013-2014) in Kabale on the same cause of Archival Preservation at
Kabale District Archives. We all joined hands and shared ideas hence the progress of the
work at the archives and we managed to save vast amounts of archival records that were
deteriorating due to the floods and wetness.
One of the specific tasks we did was cataloguing files. This seemed to be an easy
task but it eventually ended up being so much complicated. In the due course, files where
miss catalogued and there was no need to blame anyone because working with computers
it’s the most complicated thing everyone knows. One mistake makes 1000s of mistakes.
The fact that these files were not classified and the transfer forms on them were not
corresponding with the documents in the boxes only made the task harder.
Archival work its not an easy work of walk away, most people do take it as something
cheap, others refer it to as a waste of time. But it’s the thing that needs critical care and
great time to think about. To preserve a document that has been in existence and
abandoned for over 100 years and you give it a new life it’s something great.

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CHALLENGING FACTORS THAT HINDER PROPER ARCHIVAL
MANAGEMENT IN AFRICA
Nature / Format of the records:This is one of the most challenging factors that has
made records and archives management a fuss in Uganda and Africa. Most of the records
created are in paper format which are highly vulnerable to destruction from various
factors like acids, fire and water, natural disasters, and other bio-agents like cockroaches,
termites and wasps. The format in which the record is created and kept determines the
durability of that record/archive. Paper records can last long if proper care is given but
they are prone to many destructive factors. On the other hand, electronic / e-records are
good and easy to create and store but they have higher chances of destruction like
technology and software obsolesce and information manipulation. For proper long term
preservation and storage of records/archives, all government and other institutions
ororganizations should store their records in a microfilm/microfiche. With this
type/format of storage, the records can last for as long as 500 years without destruction if
proper care is taken. The case to archives, it will take a lot of funds to always buy boxes
to transfer records from destroyed boxes to new boxes and even space yet with a
microfilm/microfiche, thousands and thousands of records can be stored on a film tape
and kept for as long as it is needed.
Inadequate funding:Finance is the driving factor in day-to-day running of every
business. Most businesses / transactions / projects or plans do fail because of financial
resources being limited. This normally happens due to poor allocation of funds. Records
and archives management is taken as a limited scale hence it is always given limited
funds or even neglected. This leads to poor management of important documents due to
improper shelving and archiving. For the case of Jinja District Archives, it has got
wooden shelves of poor quality that cannot lift a box before they fall. These wooden
shelves even are disadvantageous in a way that they attract molds and are easily eaten up
by termites and cockroaches and even wasps do harbor in them hence they do end up
destroying the records. The District Administration always anticipate monies for various

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activities from the central government through the financial year budgets which in the
long run express most activities redundant because of lack of funds to work on them.
Inadequate skills:Records and archives management practices have faced a challenge of
unqualified skilled man-power. Records management programs have just been introduced
in higher institutions of learning and this creates a vacuum of skilled personnel. Most of
the ‘’records officers” in many government offices do have experience in storing
documents because they are told to do so and due to the long time work but they do lack
the qualification in managing and preserving these records and archives in case they are
affected by water/fire or other destructive effects. This greatly affects the standard of
records and archives management
High level of Illiteracy:This challenge is like cancer disease that eats up someone
unknowingly and by the time someone gets to know it, when it’s too late. Most people do
lack the reading and writing skills and this has led them loose lots of valuable assets and
properties because of lack of such skills. In Uganda, a great number of people are not
educated and the educated people take advantage of them by robbing them of their
properties and other valuables. The high level of illiteracy has affected the practice of
records/archives management in Uganda and Africa at large where most people do take
documents like receipts of transactions as a waste after all he /she has got the item he/she
wanted. With this, records/archives management usually viewed as a joke rather than real
practice.
Technology challenges: Today we are in the technology era. Many changes are waving
all over the world due to technology. The likes of web 2.0 applications like social medias,
bloggeretc.have changed the face of information management and storage. Organizations,
government organs and other local government bodies do face the challenge of
technological obsolesce and change. Records that were created in word format of
Windows 97 are completely obsolete in the current Windows software hence this creates
a great challenge of retrieving/ opening such documents. This will call for regular updates
in the information systems which wont be easy at all due to bureaucratic tendencies in
most offices.

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Flooding/Disaster: This was and still the most disastrous challenge we always
anticipated because when we started off, the whole basement was flooded of muddy
water and wet to a level of 1½ feet off the ground and these floods affected mostly the
boxes that were put on the lower bottom shelves and on the floor. As stated earlier, since
there was no any ventilation for proper air circulation, the whole archive was full of bad
odor. This impact affected us because we had to go through the process of dying these
files which took us great time and care was the most paramount issue because they could
easily get torn.
Lack of Archival boxes: This was also another problem that led to the archives
preservation work difficult. Purchasing archival boxes was difficult in that consignments
ran from 1000 boxes and above yet we needed few of them from different companies like
the East African Packaging Company. This proved to be a problem and yet most boxes
were eaten up by termites and others were destroyed by floods hence we ended up using
aided boxes that were used to store condoms by the USAID Organization. It was a shame
but we had no option because we hard to put the current files in them so that they are not
exposed to more disaster.
Limited space: This greatly challenged the work because the room was too small and the
shelves were limited yet we had a lot of boxes. The bottom shelves were ignored due to
fear of rain hence this created a vacuum of space limitation. The other rooms that where
available had poor shelves that could not support a number of boxes hence it posed a
great challenge in the work process.
Lack of support from the District officials: initially, the district authorities and other
officials who saw it in a negative way undermined the project. Ignorance it’s the disease
that is eating up Uganda and Africa’s knowledge (Information). Most people are
educated but they don’t know the use of information. This has led to inefficiency and
ineffectiveness of service delivery in government offices.
There’s one time I heard of someone asking a colleague “Who are these Bazunguz’’
(Who are these whites?), We always see them carrying boxes, papers, wont they steal our
property?” but in the actualsense, these ‘’Bazunguzs’’ came to save there properties. That
is what he/they dint know. The wet files were once lied down in the council room to dry

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but all of a sudden, one morning we found when they were thrown in the corner because
there was a meeting that was organized. This made us loos hope until the CAO (Chief
Administrative Officer) intervened and this awakened peoples mind about what we were
doing.
Weak policy enforcement:Another challenging factor that has made archiving work and
records management a fuss in Africa is the issue of weak policies and regulations. Most
governments draft polices on management of records and archives but enacting and
putting these polices in use becomes the hardest thing to do. Law enforcement measures
are weak hence many civil servants do take them as a waste of time to preserve these
records and archives.
Conclusion
Much as the archives and records management services have experienced and still
experiencing a lot of problems, this does not mean that nothing has not been done. For
the case of Jinja District Administration, Mr. Nabidda George has done and played his
part as a records officer and he has worked hand in hand with the project team from
University of Michigan- USA and two graduate students from Makerere University.
Fourteen thousand and eight hundred eighty (14,880) files were rescued/saved from
deterioration and were put in the electronic catalogue for easy retrieval. This set up a
positive change in the District Archive. Many other issues, however are still posing
challenges to the practice of Archives management not only in Jinja District Archive but
the whole of Uganda and Africa at large and if well addressed by governments, project
donors, the international records and archives organizations and other major stakeholders,
a great positive change can be made hence provide efficient and effective information
dissemination in Uganda and other African administrative organs.

The dark side of african archives 2

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