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Mutharika restructures OPC

 Malawi President Peter Mutharika has directed that the Office of the President and Cabinet be restructured by relocating some of its current functions to their relevant sectoral ministries.

“Following this restructuring, the Office of the President and Cabinet shall revert to its core business of management of the public service and cabinet affairs,” said Saulos Chilima, Malawi Vice President in a statement issued today.

The President and the Vice-President
The President and the Vice-President

The Department of HIV/AIDS and Nutrition and the Safe Motherhood Initiative is to be relocated to the Ministry of Health while the Presidential Initiative on Poverty and Hunger Reduction will now relocate to the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development.

The National Registration Bureau—which is responsible for the National I.D. Project—will be under the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Government Contracting Unit is to be managed under the Office of the Director of Public Procurement.

Mutharika has also decided that all chief executive officers of public institutions, principal secretaries and other senior public officers need to spend more time attending to their core functions.

“As a result of this, chief executive officers, principal secretaries and public officers will not be allowed to attend public or presidential functions except where the functions or events pertain to their organisations,” said Chilima who is the chairperson of the Malawi Civil Service and Public Service Reforms Commission.

He said chief executive officers, principal secretaries and senior public officials will be recognised through their performance and not by the number of public events which they will attend.

Mutharika has also ordered that women civil servants will only be allowed to perform at public functions which directly relate to their profession or organisation or at an event to commemorate an anniversary or celebration of national or international significance.

“In such cases, controlling officers will be required to exercise strict discretion on the number of female civil servants to participate in such events,” the statement reads.

The president last month appointed a seven-member  commission whose members include the Reverend Howard Matiya Nkhoma, former general secretary of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP) Synod of Livingstonia; business mogul Thom Mpinganjira, group managing director of FDH Financial Holdings; Bright Mangulama, former director in the Office of the Director of Public Procurement (ODPP).

Socio-legal activist Seodi White, Krishna Savjani of Savjani & Co who is also a senior partner for Sacranie, Gow & Co and Evelyn Mwapasa, chief executive officer for the

Mutharika’s pledged policy reforms to attain a faster rate of macroeconomic growth within a stable political and economic environment.

In his inaugural State of the Nation Address delivered in Parliament last month, he said he wants to reform the civil service and hopes to promote “professionalism, integrity, technical competence and efficiency”.

 

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8 Comments

  1. I did not vote for you Mr President, but honestly u have started very very well. The future seem promising

  2. you may soon convert your worst critics into supporters if you continue these right things. keep it up.

  3. May God bless you to implement these measures speedily. God bless Malawi !!

  4. This is not good news for Malawi Nutrition. In my opinion and experience in Malawi, if nutrition moves to the Ministry of Health it will be setting us back 10 or more years. Nutrition is first and foremost an Agricultural issue as this is where our nutrients come from, our food. If we fail at agriculture, then we have to do more in the health sector to treat the problems with pills and powders, which is much more expensive and much less productive.

    But, Nutrition is too much of a cross-sectoral issue to fit in any of the sectors (Agriculture-Health-Education-Industry-Gender & Social Welfare-Youth & Sports). We need:
    — Agriculture to produce healthy diverse diets (food security).
    — Industry to process healthy foods for our markets.
    — Education to teach school age children how to eat well & have healthy environments (gardens, orchards, water, sanitation, hygiene)
    — Health to treat nutrition problems and educate parents and communities on healthy eating & healthy living.
    — Gender & Social welfare to assure the most vulnerable in society are protected.
    — Youth & sports to encourage strong and healthy youth as our next generation of parents and to make it into the next world cup!

    I do think the other parts of the notice are excellent though!

    Get ready to write letters and educate Malawi about nutrition, or we are going to experience major setbacks in development, and we really don’t need any more setbacks these days!

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