The civil service and the economy
Time and time again I have written that Malawi must be better organised to achieve optimal development. There are enough resources, human and material, for a country to embark on sustainable development. The problem is lack of organisation and infrastructure.
We have heard many times that Malawi needs more engineers, doctors, scientists and other in the technical field. But these worthy professionals cannot achieve much in an environment of incompetent management. A distinguished doctor cannot do his or her duty if the medical stores are inefficiently and dishonestly managed.
In The Nation, the Chief Secretary to the Government Hawa Ndilowe was quoted as saying: “Civil servants should reflect on their values and ethics in as far as public funds management is concerned.” This and the rest of what she said revealed a lot about the cavalier manner the Malawi civil service is managed.
These days all over the developing world, political leader and their advisers advocate State participation in an economy. The State has to be not only development conscious but also active without trespassing into what is essentially the private sector. Where the public sector begins and ends and the private sector starts is a matter for political leadership with tips from economists.
The Cashgate affair took place partly because Chief Secretary of the time forgot or neglected his duties. A Chief Secretary is to the civil service what a managing director is to a conglomerate. In the United States, instead of managing director, they speak of president, those under the president are vice-presidents and they are responsible to the president for the profitable performance of the subsidiary companies they operate.
An insurance magnate in the United States by the name W. Clement Stone coined a slogan “Don’t expect what you do not inspect”.
Was the Chief Secretary monitoring the performance of the ministries under principal secretaries? To blame some civil servant for not reporting to the police whenever they saw someone stealing public fund is just a matter of passing the buck on the part of the Chief Secretary.
No one ever operated a profitable business trusting the ethics of his employees. It is not that the civil servants who looted the government Treasury did not know that theft was both unethical and illegal. They looted the funds because they noticed that the security guards were neglecting their duties.
During the one party era, the civil service was not perfect in the sense that it was made of holy people. Senior civil servant had gained experienced while working under British civil servants. Those days, civil servants were not allowed to operate businesses. Therefore, there was not temptation awarding a contract to one’s company.
Secondly, former president late Hasting Kamuzu H. Banda left nothing to chance. He monitored the performance of everyone, minister or principal secretary.
The civil service should be reformed and restructured. The Chief Secretary’s job should resemble that of chief executive officer (CEO) of a conglomerate. He/she should adopt the techniques these CEOs use to keep themselves closely informed of the income and expenditure of each ministry. Laissez faire and delegation of authority are different management styles.
The Cashgate reflects dereliction on the part of leadership both technical or professional and political. Looting took place even in the office of the Chief Secretary. This should be cause for self appraisal. Money is the lifeblood of the civil service. The head of the civil service bears ultimate responsibility for the competence of the civil service and this competence includes safeguarding government resources.
The Malawi Government should ask donors if they would kindly fund a commission to visit countries such as Singapore, Mauritius or South Korea and try to learn how their civil service operates and, in particular, the role of the head of the civil service. Alternatively, the donor country could send its expert to come and examine the weaknesses in our civil service structure. Preferably that expert should be the one who is familiar with civil service in the newly industrialised countries.
The civil service is the principal component of the economy. It must be in the hands of competent executives.
