MINISTERS SHOULD BE APPOINTED FROM OUTSIDE PARLIAMENT

Kellys Kaunda

MINISTERS SHOULD BE APPOINTED FROM OUTSIDE PARLIAMENT

Parliament has not always produced enough competent human resource from which to pick ministers.

Consequently, Zambia has sometimes seen ministers who are not suitable for cabinet positions.

It’s painful to watch the country, 60yrs after independence, being served by clearly incompetent ministers.

And yet, the country has an immense pool of potentially competent individuals who can serve this country with flying colors.

If you have worked in government, you will understand the agony and pain of being served by a clearly incompetent minister.

In the current system, Zambia has ministers who are not capable of providing strategic direction in their assigned ministries.

They sit like ceremonial office bearers simply reading speeches they hardly understand.

In the end, taxpayers are paying a fellow adult for nothing.

Just listen to some ministers when they speak without reading speeches and you know why the current system of appointing them from within parliament is problematic.

Ministers are critical in national development. Their leadership in their assigned portfolios is indispensable to this endeavor.

This means the underdevelopment Zambia has faced since independence has a lot to do with them.

Presidents must be given a wider space to choose their cabinet from – the whole country.

If not, they will be pushing for an increase in nominated MPs so that they have this wider space.

But this will meet with resistance from opponents as it will increase the number of loyalists which might just turn parliament into the executive’s rubber stamp.

Now, this is not good for transparency and accountability.