PSs admit laxity, pledge reformed civil service

Controlling officers in government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) have conceded there is laxity in enforcement of discipline in the civil service and have pledged to drive reforms to improve service delivery.

The principal secretaries (PSs) made the pledge at Kamuzu Palace in Lilongwe yesterday during a meeting President Lazarus Chakwera called to reinforce his call for a functional civil service that will support the austerity measures he announced two weeks ago.

During the meeting held in camera, the PSs acknowledged to the President their failure to enforce the law on errant public officers, as overall controlling officers of MDAs.

In an interview with The Nation after the hour-long engagement, Department of Disaster Management Affairs (Dodma) commissioner Charles Kalemba said the PSs told the President that the last 20 years have seen gross indiscipline in the civil service which has eroded the strength of Malawi Public Service Regulations (MPSR).

He cited controlling officers’ failure to discipline thieving public servants by allowing them to reimburse the funds without facing the law as per the regulations.

Said Kalemba: “We told the President that we have been negligent, but we have now agreed that such issues like stealing will have to attract the penalties in our regulations.”

He added that there has been a lack of adherence to other laid down procedures and regulations, a development which has led some civil servants to be reporting late for duties and knocking off at any time.

Kalemba further pointed out that another failure has been the lack of induction of new recruits in the civil service, saying in the past all new recruits were inducted at Mpemba Staff Development Institute in Blantyre to familiarise them with public service systems and discipline.

He said the discussion also centred on how to improve procurement processes, quality of projects as well as meeting deadlines in implementation of government projects.

Speaking earlier, Chakwera asked the senior management team to be tough, honest and brave in fixing the broken systems. He said as controlling officers, the task of fixing the civil service rested with them.

He said: “You need to ensure that there is no single MDA that is motivated by anything else other than excellent service to Malawi and its people because if anyone in the civil service is there for any other reasons, it is your job to change the people.”

The sentiments come almost a year after the President was presented with a report on the review of the civil service and systems to improve efficiency.

Vice-President Saulos Chilima, whom the President on February 14 2021 assigned to lead a special task team for three months, submitted the report to Chakwera on May 21 last year.

In his reaction in an interview yesterday, Centre for Society Transparency and Accountability executive director Willy Kambwandira said the government’s delay to implement the reforms and the ‘hide-and- seek’ approach to the whole process does not demonstrate mindset change rhetoric.

The 14-member task force comprised academics, government officials, governance experts and CSO representatives and reviewed the systems of procurement, contracts and employment in government to offer quick-fix solutions to lack of efficiency in the civil service and fight corruption.

Yesterday’s meeting came barely a week after the new Secretary to the President and Cabinet (SPC) Colleen Zamba also met the PSs in Lilongwe last Thursday where she announced the suspension of all external meetings for MDAs to tame waste in the public sector.

The SPC also said government will soon introduce awards for best performing civil servants, including a proposal to award best performing PSs.

Zamba said the PSs are the first line management team of the civil service and the meeting was the first layer of engagement to implement the agenda of government.

Former minister of Finance Goodall Gondwe two weeks ago told The Nation there was erosion of discipline in the public service which was frustrating implementation of reforms and other initiatives unlike during the time of founding president Hastings Kamuzu Banda.