The Civil Service in its current form is in Peril
By Amb. Emmanuel Mwamba
The trouble with the position of Secretary to Cabinet is that over the decades, it has been stripped of it’s powers and authority and it’s functions dispersed and diluted.
The Secretary to Cabinet, other than his role as a Secretary to Cabinet, heads Cabinet Office, the highest administrative Office in Zambia with an overarching responsibility of superintending over the Public Service to achieve national strategic objectives espoused in development plans.
Cabinet Office derives its statutory mandate from Article (176) of the Constitution of Zambia (Amendment) Act No. 2 of 2016 on the creation of the Office of the Secretary to the Cabinet.
The Secretary to Cabinet is now a bull dog without teeth. His powers have been reduced to ceremonial roles and letter writing.
It’s for this reason that over 412 qualified senior civil servants have been removed from various ministries and packed at Public Service Management Division (PSMD) and without shame, an openly tribal clique has replaced them.
It is also for this reason that the President and his Ministers are illegally interfering in procurement processes especially for large and multi-million procurements, and the day to day running of ministries and government agencies.
While Cabinet Office is designed to be literally the Presidential Delivery Unit of development and delivery of policies and projects, former Prime British Minister Tony Blair has formed his own Presidential Delivery Unit, complete with independent office and new logo under President Hichilema’s State House.
Further new Commissions from Teachers, Local Government, Police and Prisons, Public Service e.t.c were formed and the Secretary to Cabinet has limited role in supervising and ensuring that he is their head.
While the Secretary to Cabinet is also expected to supervise Permanent Secretaries, this is not possible as these officers are direct appointees of the President and they do well to ignore the SC’s toothless supervision. He can’t fire them!
Now the Secretary to Cabinet is reduced to banning the holding of workshops in private lodges or pronouncing travel bans, both which are never followed or adhered to. How many times have you heard about such bans?
We need to restore the civil service to a professional entity it was designed to, autonomous and non-partisan.
And until the powers of the Secretary to Cabinet are reinstated including the appointment and supervision of Permanent Secretaries who head and run ministries,provinces, local government and government agencies, the civil service will remain in total disarray.
This will allow Cabinet Office and the civil service to deliver on its mandate of policy development, policy delivery and public service delivery.
Presidents will continue to grope in the dark, yeilding to very expensive but poor advice such as the setting up of parallel offices such as the Presidential Delivery Unit.
Because the presidency has hijacked The civil service it has now evolved to a bureaucratic forest and nightmare which is difficult to navigate to deliver public service and public good in time.
Because of its rules, regulations and circulars, many times designed to curb theft and abuses on one hand, and the force of State House on it on another, the Civil Service has become a stumbling block to those keen to implement quick fixes and political projects and is clearly frustrating especially to politicians with a limited five year mandate to deliver.
Mwamba and his bedfellow Mmembe are writing the same thing. It’s unbelievable that both think it’s the UPND government that has ” weakened” the powers of the SC. Mwamba himself was misbehaving as ambassador and the erstwhile SC could not censor him. If anything the office of SC was cheapened by the patriotic front when they came to power. Dr. Kanganja who they inherited from the MMD government was embarrassed and frustrated so many times until he constructively resigned and was replaced by someone who was very close to their first PF president.
“…former Prime British Minister Tony Blair has formed his own Presidential Delivery Unit, complete with independent office and new logo under President Hichilema’s State House.”
How true is this?
Is Mr. Mwamba in a position to prove this allegation?
Mwamba is good at misleading those who are vulnerable.The civil service has not changed at all.The Secretary to Cabinet is still functioning as before.The laws and regulations have not changed.The Secretary to Cabinet is head of the civil service all the Permanent Secretaries are under him.Even if the President appoints the Permanent Secretaries they still remain under Secretary to Cabinet.It had been like that even in one party government of Dr Kaunda.All regulations and pronouncements by government are not new they are like old song which is nice and is not easily forgotten.I think Mwamba has never worked in the civil service at any Ministry or department of a Ministry.Some certain measures are taken by government through Secretary to Cabinet like holding of workshops on restricted places with the view of cost serving measure due to limited resources.All these measures have been there from way back.Tribal talks in government corridors are not there and have not been allowed or practiced those are Mwamba’s wishes.The General Orders are still very much in place.Please ignore Mwamba’s I know it all syndrome “kuziba vonse syndrome”.