President Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera has spoken strongly against laziness and disgruntlement among civil servants, warning that his government will not tolerate these tendencies.
Chakwera made the sentiments on Wednesday when he launched the Malawi School of Government, which his administration has championed to eliminate the chaos in government ministries, departments and agencies.
He said at the time he was assuming the presidency in June 2020, he found that chaos was the order of the day in many government offices.
"I found the chaos in four groups. The first group is the chaos of not knowing the job, because I found that even though there are many civil servants in the government whose work is completed because they were trained well and because their expertise is compatible with the offices they were given, there are others who are not able to work because they were not trained well and were given conflicting jobs. So we saw that since the problem is so big, we should set up this school, a school to teach how to work in the government," said Chakwera.
The President said the major objective of the school will be to build and enhance professionalism and skills among civil servants and to address reasons that make public servants to work with reluctance and disgruntlement.
At this point, President Chakwera told Malawians that his government is establishing an Individual Performance Management System, in collaboration with the Chandler Institute of Governance, with the aim that all government workers should show each other how they are serving Malawians.
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He thanked representatives of the Chandler Institute of Governance for participating in the launch of the Malawi School of Government.
President Chakwera also expressed his gratitude to the Cambridge University Governance Labs, led by Professor John Barker, for helping Malawi develop the course work for Ethical Decision Making, the Governments of Kenya and Singapore, and Tony Blair Institute who are helping in teaching civil servants computer lessons.
He directed the Secretary to the President and Cabinet (SPC) to work with all Principal Secretaries (PSs), parastatal leaders, District Commissioners (DCs), and the Department of Human Resource and Development (DHRD) to identify public servants who should attend certain courses at the school.
"When we talk of Public Sector Reform, the first thing to reform are the public servants themselves, and that work must be done here at the Malawi School of Government. I don't want someone to bring chaos in my government, so bring all the crooked people here and they will be straightened out," said Chakwera.
