Africa-Press – Zambia. The New Heritage Party (NHP) has expressed concern over the United Party for National Development – UPND’s penchant blame game on the civil service for their own failures.
New Heritage Party President Chishala Kateka said that the latest sector to feel the indiscriminate accusation by the UPND Government is the Zambian civil service which, in their opinion, has served the country remarkably.
“Our leaders in the ruling party are now blaming the civil service for the breakdown of the system of governance. We feel this is grossly unfair bearing in mind that the mess this country is in now, is directly connected to the executive and the ruling party,” she said
Ms Kateka stated the need to remind the UPND on how the civil service operates, each director is given deliverables and targets and which are attached to the Permanent Secretary’s performance contract, this means a non-performing director is easily identifiable.
She mentioned that their Party feels it is not fair to claim that things are not working because the civil service has directors appointed by the previous party in power, adding that the UPND should be reminded that the executive and other equally misguided critics that some directors working in the civil service have been working in the system long before the previous party in power took office.
“If we may ask, what criteria is used to identify a PF-inclined civil servant?” she questioned
“It is a well known fact that all civil servants, including those belonging to the UPND, are allowed to vote. We also know that the civil servants deliverables are based on cabinet policies – but if the policies are not clearly spelt out to the civil servants, as issue of miscommunication, this is then reflected in the results – what is termed a ‘garbage in, garbage out’ manner,” she said
“What we also know is that the loyalty of the civil service is to the system and not to a political party as our ill-advised UPND members are implying,” she added
Ms Kateka disclosed that according to the UPND, all 300 civil servants that have been placed on ‘holding position’ out of which 76 are at director level, are not doing their duties diligently, the question is what has caused this inertia if at all it exists.
“Another glaring anomaly that we have observed in the civil service since President Hakainde Hichilema and the UPND came into office is gross nepotism and tribalism, we feel the misguided accusation is to justify mass firing of civil servants to pave way for appointments of UPND cadres hailing from certain regions despite this clique having little or no experience in running of a country,” she noted
She explained that the scenario is now exerting a lot of pressure on the national treasury because these ‘holding positions’ were created by previous governments to accommodate recalled diplomats awaiting redeployment bearing in mind that the maximum number at any given time did not exceed five. And despite this, the powers that be are milking the treasury by accommodating perceived PF-inclined civil servants who are being forced to relinquish these positions in preference for UPND cadres.
“We feel this is a visible audit query which is in the public domain and in which the Auditor General should take keen interest with the same zeal he takes in auditing other departments,” she cited
And Ms Kateka highlighted that the issue also points to corruption in that it has been used to appoint people based on tribalism and regionalism as the list of new appointees since UPND came into power clearly shows, worse still, there’s a record number of directors and other civil servants who were retired and have not received their benefits and are still on the payroll termed as ‘separatees payroll’ receiving monthly salaries as stated by law.
“Is this what our good President Hakainde Hichilema means when he says he is ‘being methodical’ and saving costs?” she wondered
“We are raising these issues because there has been created a disconnect between the recently appointed top but inexperienced civil servants and those in the lower ranks who have more experience, creating a haphazard working relationship that will impact negatively on quality delivery,” Ms Kateka mentioned
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