President Emmerson Mnangagwa has warned ministers against missing deadlines for the Cabinet Memoranda saying the tendency is retrogressive to administration and transparency.
Mnangagwa addressing the last Cabinet Meeting of 2023 at the State House on Tuesday said it was concerning that ministers tabled important matters under 'any other business'.
''Cabinet recess does not mean that we close our offices completely, Government business must not be disrupted and your availability to attend to issues, remain integral as he warned ministers to submit issues of importance on time, under the correct fora.
''Another critical area of concern is the increasing tendency by some ministers to table substantive matters under ''Any Other Business''. This practice must stop.
''Equally, the late submission of Cabinet Memoranda is retrogressive to constructive debate and good administration, transparency, collective responsibility and accountability. Please adequately liaise with the Chief Secretary on such matters and be guided accordingly.
He told cabinet ministers to do more to modernize, industrialize and grow the economy.
''The growth of the economy, all ministries must work harder for the achievement of impactful results in our various programmes and projects.
''As such, the Cabinet must now accelerate the implementation of National Development Strategy 1 so that our National Vision 2030 of ''an empowered and prosperous upper-middle income society'', is attained much earlier. Your work is therefore cut out for you,'' he said.
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Added Mnangagwa: ''To this end, we convened the government High-Level Retreat on 14 September 2023 and thereafter, Induction Sessions for Ministers and Permanent Secretaries, were done.
''These platforms have adequately unpacked the key tenets of collective responsibility, mandates and roles as well as my expectations thereto, towards ensuring that government work is properly coordinated.
''Recently, you also shared experiences with colleagues from the United Arab Emirates, as part of strengthening our administrative apparatus. Benchmarking against best practices, we should therefore strive to be robust, agile, responsive and anticipatory in meeting the needs of the people as well as in responding to attendant challenges.
''In terms of the specific Cabinet programmes, I am reasonably satisfied that we were able to go through most items set for this session. We should be able to conclude outstanding matters as soon as we resume.''
Be advised that, going forward, you are called upon to regularly undertake critical and succinct self-evaluation of programmes and projects under your portfolios, to inform focused and coordinated programming.
''In 2023, it was displeasing that some items were not discussed due to non-submission of the relevant Cabinet Memoranda, this was, despite having been proposed for consideration by Ministers. Such oversights or dereliction of duty should not be repeated in the coming year.''
He was, however, pleased to note that the government completed all the Mid-Term Reports on the Third 100-Day Cycle Priority Projects, despite the changes in the nomenclature of various ministerial portfolios.
