Africa-Press – Zambia. PF presidential hopeful Greyford Monde has argued against those insinuating that the civil service under the New Dawn Administration is sabotaging government’s agenda. Hon Monde wondered how a civil service that has been existing way before PF ascended to power could sabotage the UPND government. He has expressed worry over the continued tendency by the UPND government to align the civil servants to the former PF regime.
“You know that the civil servants live longer than the tenure or term of a politician. A politician is only five years. The civil service, right now you go to check the civil servants, some of them, how long they have been in those seats. They have been, some of them for 30 years, 40 years, others are even retiring,” he said.
“Why would they want just to sabotage the UPND today as if it’s the only political party? No, it’s because the UPND party has gone out for them and begin to align them to the former political party and say these are PF.”
Hon Monde said calling the civil servants “PF civil servants” is the beginning of failure. He explained that civil service is like a vehicle as he likened politicians to drivers. The party presidential hopeful said this when he featured on a debate hosted by Linda Banks yesterday.
“I want to tell you that when I went into the ministry myself, I had a very good time with those civil servants who are very well qualified. Some of them are not trained only in Zambia, they have gone into serious countries where they have received a lot of training and they have come out with serious qualifications,” he said.
“So for anyone to just come today and call them that these are PF civil servants, that is the beginning of the failure. So the way the civil service is, it’s like a vehicle. And these policy makers who are the politicians are like drivers. So you get into the seat, driver the car to where you want to take it. And the civil servants are always ready for these changes, following the manifesto, following the changes, following the budget, this is how the civil service works.”
He lamented that the civil service right now is receiving a lot of attacks from the UPND leadership, starting from the Presidency. “But these civil service right now is receiving a lot of attacks from these politicians, from the President to the last person. Even cadres are going out for the civil servants, calling them names, wanting to change them and all of that,” he said.
“That is the problem and this is why you see that nothing is holding in this government. Completely nothing. Which sector is thriving today as we speak? You can ask everybody here there is no sector that is holding that you can call having achieved or having managed to treat the citizens, according to what they expect.” Commenting on agriculture, Hon Monde said the UPND have made the same mistake of attacking the civil service in the sector.
“It’s a very sad story. And when I talk about agriculture and I talk about services in the health sector, I don’t want to speak from a political point of view because these are issues or matters that really affect our lives. And to start politicizing these issues and come to platforms and begin to blame everybody, including the PF…,” he said.
“You know that this is the second season that UPND is delivering services in terms of agriculture inputs and so on and so forth. The first season was actually the season 2021/2022 farming season and that season came out very successful. Everything went well, no farmer complained. That reason I want to tell you that it is not UPND that performed that, it was the PF structure. So UPND just literally found all systems going… so this is their first season where we have rated them, not the first one.”
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