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Zambia: LGAZ Wants Service Commission Back
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The Times of Zambia (Ndola)
6 August 2008
Posted to the web 6 August 2008
Local authority stakeholders have endorsed the re-establishment of the Local Government Service Commission and proposed that the tenure of office for mayors be extended to two and a half years.
Mayors, town clerks and council chairpersons moved the motion at a consultative meeting for the enactment of the Local Government Service Commission for the council authorities that was officially opened by Local Government and Housing Minister Sylvia Masebo in Lusaka yesterday.
Moving the motion, Local Government Association of Zambia (LGAZ) president Charles Mumena said the extension of the mayors' term of office would allow them to complete their council duties as the current term was too short.
"We are appealing to the Government to consider our proposal by increasing the years to two and a half.
"This must be endorsed by the Local Government Service Commission to be re-established," Mr Mumena said.
Earlier, Ms Masebo called on the mayors to institute a technical committee that would look into all the proposals and work within the next seven days to enable her forward it to the vice-president for a special Cabinet meeting to discuss the matter before taking the Act to Parliament.
She said once the appointed committee finalised the proposals, she would ensure that Cabinet tabled it within the shortest possible time so that it could be implemented by September.
Masebo expressed disappointment that despite the Government's efforts to allocate grants to all councils, there was serious abuse of constituency development funds (CDF) by council officials.
She said it was sad that there was too much nepotism in the way councils currently recruited staff.
"I am personally disappointed that as council authorities you have failed to deliver your duties. There is too much mismanagement of development funds and employing of unqualified persons who don't even know what they should do in their offices.
"In the last four years, there has been a sharp increase in allocation of CDFs from the Government but some officers are not using these funds transparently and then, the following day you write a proposal asking for more funds," Ms Masebo said.
She said this year the Government would not give further funds to councils, which would not retire their receipts to her office to spell out how they had used the first allocation.
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Zambia United Local Authorities Workers Union (ZULAWU) vice-president, Misheck Nyambose said the commission should look at issues of recruitment, transfer and retirement of council officers to improve council operations through the recruitment of competent persons.
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