PSs FOR SPECIAL DUTIES, WHY SO MANY?
Permanent Secretary for Special Duties at Cabinet Office, Nicholas Phiri explains the role of PS for Special Duties..
Nicholas Phiri, Permanent Secretary for Special Duties at Cabinet Office writes;
Dear Colleagues, I have noted with interest the debate on the number of PSes Special Duties.
It is important that we respond to this and put things in perspective.
Allow me to start with the obvious: government positions are filled up based on the approved staff establishment of a respective arm of government.
Currently, Cabinet Office has 4 Permanent Secretaries incharge of Special Duties.
No new office has been created
Two questions that have arisen are around the specific tasks of PS Special Duties and the cost of running those offices.
Before I can proceed, let me state clearly that it is not true that the previous administration had one PS Special Duties. There were actually two.
What is true though is that they may not have had a well defined job description.
What are those Special Duties?
Well, let me start from the basics again. Cabinet Office is the epi-center of the civil service. The effectiveness of the civil service depends on this office.
Administratively, all PS report to Secretary to Cabinet and are accountable to SC for contractual deliverables.
SC through Cabinet runs the civil service on behalf of the President of the Republic of Zambia.
In practice, it means that Secretary to Cabinet has to work closely with all PSs across sectors and categories to facilitate and ensure efficient service delivery. This is not only exhausting, but a recipe for poor service delivery as the amount of work is way too much for one office.
In order to address the above challenge, the Office of the PS Special Duties Cabinet Office comes in handy.
PS Special Duties are PS without portfolio. They literally cut across all government ministries, departments, programs and activities.
Some tasks are specific and defined while other tasks are deligated from Office of the Secretary to Cabinet and Office of the President as they unfold.
While I understand the concern about the cost, I don’t understand what standard is being used to call it as being high.
What is the cost benefit analysis?
Just for interest, members of the public may wish to know that the office of the PS Special Duties doesn’t come with any additional staff.
At Cabinet Office, there is what is referred to as common services office.
This office has directors and support staff in human resource, procurement, finance, audit etc which service all the divisions under Cabinet office use.
As it stands today, we have to deal with issues of compliance to government policies, CDF issues, depoliticize the civil service, unite the country, undertake targeted reforms, seal financial leakages and many other things. While portfolio PSes will be implementing this, Special Duties will support ministries to ensure that they succeed.
I thought we could help put the discussion in context.
Thank you very much.
Nick Phiri
PS – Special Duties