Zvamaida Murwira — Government is set to rationalise jobs and grades in the civil service to streamline managerial posts, abolish redundant positions and reorganise the workforce for better efficiency, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister, Dr Jenfan Muswere, has said.
Addressing a post-Cabinet media briefing in Harare yesterday, Dr Muswere said Cabinet considered and approved a report on the Public Service job evaluation presented by Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister July Moyo.
He said the exercise, which started in February last year, made several key findings, including overlapping of certain roles within ministries, between some directors and chief directors.
"The key findings of the evaluation exercise included: the advancement via grade system which violates the principles of job evaluation that a job must maintain its grade throughout its lifetime unless the duties of the job have changed to warrant regrading; functional duplications and overlaps in roles within and across line Ministries, the duties and jobs of chief directors and directors being identical which situation must render one of the jobs redundant; the existence of more managerial jobs than non-managerial jobs; and the prevalence of dead-end jobs for specialists," said Dr Muswere.
He said the findings of the job evaluation will result in a review of manning levels across all line Ministries at national and sub-national levels, rationalisation of staff, up-skilling and re-skilling of members, adoption of a new compensation framework, and the implementation of a new salary structure to conform with the principle of equal pay for equal work.
"Consultations are now underway for optimisation and rationalisation of the findings, with a view to aligning structures to Vision 2030 as well the mantra of leaving no one and no place behind," said Dr Muswere.
He said the purpose of the evaluation was to establish the composition and value of jobs and functions across Ministries.
Cabinet also considered and approved the Health Workforce Strategy: 2023-2030 and Health Workforce Investment Compact: 2024-2026, which were presented by the Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development, Professor Amon Murwira, as Chairperson of the Cabinet Committee on Human Capital Development, Skills Application and Employment Creation.
"The Health Workforce Strategy: 2023-2030 aims at ensuring a sustainable and resilient health workforce capable of supporting Zimbabwe's goal of becoming an upper-middle-income economy by 2030.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
"The five strategic themes for the Health Workforce Strategy are: Education, training and development; deployment; utilisation and governance; retention and migration management; monitoring and evaluation; ICT and research; and planning and financing," Dr Muswere said.
"The education, training and development pillar seeks to align all health worker training programmes with health sector needs, to increase annual training outputs from 3 334 in 2022 to at least 7 000 by 2030, to professionalise and integrate community health workers into the main workforce and to refurbish and expand training schools infrastructure."
The aim of health workforce retention and migration management was to remunerate optimally in terms of Government modalities to reduce the attrition rate by 2030.
Other objectives are to strengthen the Health Workforce Management Information System, digitalise the health workforce management systems, and strengthen health workforce research to inform the decision-making processes.
"The health workforce planning and financing pillar seeks to increase per capita investment in health from the current US$9 to at least US$32, with a long-term goal of US$55 per capita.
"Key strategic interventions include increasing domestic resources mobilisation and aligning investments in the health workforce by Government, the private sector and development partners," Dr Muswere said.
