By Burnett Munthali
It is not surprising that President Lazarus Chakwera has decided to keep the proposed reforms a secret after it was made available to him on May 21, 2021 by Vice President Saulos Chilima.
Chakwera recently said it is wrong for people to say that he has not been implementing the reforms which are in the report, saying his government has been working on the reforms and had achieved some commendable milestones.
But how can a failing President appraise himself in the absence of his appraisal form? The appraisal form in this case is the public service Reforms report which, unfortunately, has not been shared with the public upto date
However, the President doesn’t have a clear picture of what he really wants to do for Malawi when he assigned his Vice President Saulos Chilima to come up with a report within a given short period of time.
First of all, Chakwera is completely clueless and doesn’t have any idea of how he can take this nation forward. All the pastor knows is kneeling down and praying but there’s no action to match with his words. Government is big business and it is indeed serious business.
Secondly, the speech made by His Excellency the President tallies with his reluctance to act on the same report for over one year now and by refusing to make it public doesn’t help anyone but puts the very unpopular leader lose even more popularity from his electorates.
Fourthly, this is yet just another political thermometer that can be used to assess how Chakwera is falling to take Malawi forward. The citizens of this country are getting worried because this leader is acting like a student who doesn’t know anything but is failing to use a “likasa” that could probably help him score a little something.
Moving fast forward
Reforms frequently present an opportunity to restructure enterprises or the whole economy in ways that help to achieve long-term objectives such as sustained long-term economic growth and employment, changes in income distribution, improved access to basic needs, etc.
Public sector reform consists of deliberate changes to the structures and processes of public sector organizations with the objective of getting them to run better.
There are strategies of public sector reforms. Some of the strategies are:
(1) increased accountability: (2) decentralization and delegation of authority and responsibility for decision making and management; (3) application of information technology to improve management and responsiveness of governments to citizens; (4) developing and improving management control.
Moving slightly back and fast forward
The Chatsika Commission of 1995 during Bakili Muluzi’s leadership focused on restructuring the civil service to improve performance and on enhancing the salary structure and benefits for civil servants and it was open.
The Chatsika Commission also resonated with the Herbecq Commission on the need to rationalise the staffing in the civil service, mparticularly support services to ensure that only employees that are shown on the establishment are recruited and retained.
Then the reform agenda was relaunched in 2015 reflecting a renewed impetus for Reforms and was provided under the leadership of Arthur Peter Mutharika. This agenda was made public and can still be accessed for reference by everyone.
The renewed impetus was inspired by the need to address challenges experienced with previous reforms and make reforms work and the need to make the public service more efficient, effective and accountable in the face of the deep seated inertia and stagnation that had come to be associated with the public sector, as well as the “cash-gate” scandal which displayed deep corruption and theft in the public service.
The current report, which is still under wraps, was done to address what Chakwera said his government wanted to fix the broken systems. However, in the look of things, President Chakwera and his government is breaking the systems of government and cannot fix anything.
So what Pastor Lazarus Chakwera has done, by refusing to make the report public, is very unfortunate and should not have been the case.
The President must make the report public and start implementing the recommended actions contained in the document which can take this country forward.
