Economics and Business Forum

Management in place of administration

Sometimes in the 1970s, there were moves among academicians and professionals that the British civil service, to be effective, must borrow private sector management concepts. They said instead of administration there should be management. This move was sometimes referred to as new managerialism.

This concern for efficiency and effectiveness has been felt in the Malawi civil service in view of the Cashgate scandal. Why did it take so long to be uncovered? Make no mistake or pretence, what happened within the two years of Joyce Banda’s term is a tusk of an elephant not its body. I am using the analogy of the elephant instead of the more popular tip of the iceberg because most of us have never seen icebergs, not even their tips. But we know and see that an elephant’s tusk is a good deal smaller than the body behind it.

Revelations of apparent wrong doing in manner of contract awards and procurements have been made over the year and they keep coming. It appears that public services are little monitored. Someone, somewhere can just abuse his trust without fear of apprehension.

In private sector worldwide there are conglomerates with budgets bigger than those of the Malawi Government. They are being managed profitably even though some of them are dispersed over large geographical areas. How are they managed successfully? Questions like this must have been asked by those who talked of new managerialism.

Responsibility for efficient operation of the public service ought to be laid on someone. The Cashgate must be condemned, yes, but also the one who was slumbering while the suspects were thieving and laundering.

The professional head of the civil service is the chief secretary. What is the job of this top most civil servant? What qualification are persons appointed to these positions expected to bring with them to this office?

Whatever recommendations the commission currently proposing reform makes, let us hope it will suggest some drastic measure about the duties and supervising power of the chief secretary. We need a chief secretary who can perform like a chief executive of a conglomerate. We are talking of improving the performance of the public service by borrowing concepts from the private sector.

The State these days has got to be entrepreneurial because it is competing with other States in managing its economy. Maintaining law and order is a bare minimum. It may not, and it need not be directly concerned with the provision of all the services in the economy. But those it does not provide, it must see that others are delivering effectively and efficiently.

In the private sector concepts like economy efficiency and effectiveness dominate the minds of managers and managing directors. These concepts ought to be imported into the civil service. This is what Maggie, the Iron Lady, Britain’s first woman prime minister did when she took office towards the end of the 1970s. She hired an executive of Britain’s best known trading corporation, Marks and Spencer, to analyse how the civil service was being managed and to recommend measures for cost cutting. He did a good job.

In the private sector, improving services or introducing new products goes hand in hand with efforts to minimise costs. Such attitudes ought to be brought into the Malawi public service. Also to be brought in is the concept of total quality management. Customers or clients of the public service are members of the public and it is their satisfaction that amounts to quality. Quality is defined in terms of products or services which meet the user’s needs, fitting the purpose intended, conforming to requirements but with resources, economy and efficiency for the suppliers.

One of the concepts to be brought to the public service is the mode of remunerations. In the private sector, a company pays bonuses or perks when it has performed well in the market. They reward those who contribute to the profitability of the firm. In the civil service, the view is that we must have extra pay because we budgeted for it even if the economy has performed poorly. This attitude is encouraged by non-governmental organisation who feel their only duty is to defend rights but never to advocate duties. There must be overall improvement of the economy and the concomitant collection of taxes.

For sometimes, there has been talk about more decentralisation. This must be preceded by appropriate training for those who will bear responsibilities at the local level. Once upon a time there used to be school inspectors in this country. There is a saying: Don’t expect if you do not inspect. The Cashgate and irregular procurements could not have taken place if there had been adequate inspection.

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