Will they or will they not work? That is the debate. With great pomp and a sumptuous dinner, President Peter Mutharika launched Public Sector Reforms Agenda. They had been crafted by a committee headed by Vice-President Saulos Chilima. What was not highlighted were the previous, 79 unsuccessful attempts at public reforms.
Chilima had inadvertently said who the devil was but quickly got wiser and never said it again. He had blamed political interference. He had realised that the only person who interferes in the public service is a President.
The main problem with our public services is wrong people in wrong jobs because of political appointments, transfers or dismissals made through presidential directives. In short, political interference. The public services do not provide the secure, rewarding, professional, respected and pensionable careers they used to.
There is widespread demoralisation and frustration when Public Service Regulations are flouted and blue-eyed, mostly incompetent and inexperienced people associated with the ruling-party, even from outside the public services, are catapulted into senior positions. The career public servants lose hope of advancement in a rat-race where political colour rather than merit counts. Their aspirations are killed. They do not work hard enough to become PS one day. In short, they do not provide Malawians with quality, public services.
The Reforms Commission did not identify political interference as the cause of demoralisation and frustration in the public services and then offer solutions.
In its profound wisdom the Reforms Commission diplomatically avoided the issue. Instead, it rightly identified inefficiency in ministries as the problem. It prescribed performance agreements as the solution. It set down specific tasks to be achieved by each ministry, much the same way individuals face performance appraisals and submit report-cards to bosses in the private sector. That was exactly what all the pomp was about.
We all know that institutions are not inefficient but individuals in institutions are. What was left vague was whose neck was on the block if the task was not performed. Would it be the neck of the minister, the PS or someone else?
The Reforms Commission did not explain how performance agreements in a ministry will restore high morale, pride, confidence, commitment and aspirations in the career public servants of that ministry for the desired efficiency to be achieved. It did not explain how an incompetent, political appointee will be efficient if presented with a performance agreement.
We all know that inefficiency is the result of some underlying malaise. If we tackle inefficiency without tackling its causes, then we are treating the symptom and leaving the disease untreated. So long as the career public servants are demoralised and frustrated or the public services are headed by incompetent, inexperienced, political appointees there will be inefficiency.
What needs to be reformed first is the system that, without any legal authority other than presidential directives, creates over 90 principal secretaries in a government of only 20 ministries; creates so many deputy governors at the Reserve Bank; puts 20 000 chiefs on the public payroll; appoints a budget director who brews up cashgate; appoints or promotes some without going through the Civil Service Commission; changes the Police Inspector General, the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Anti-Corruption Bureau director and others like bed-linen; and so forth. That is the system which needs drastic reforms urgently.
Obviously, a rat cannot tell a cat about the need to tie a bell on him. That is why the Reforms Commission skirted around the issue. It left the cause untreated but addressed the effect.
We need to persuade our Presidents to get their hands off our public services. We need to educate our presidents that there is no room for presidential directives in a multi-party democracy because the only room available is for rule of law.
That message cannot be delivered by a Reforms Commission which is appointed by the President and headed by his Vice-President.
The Malawi Civil Service is an organisation. Like all organisations it has form and function or structure, systems, procedures and staffing-levels. Its function is to provide various services to Malawians. What we call management in the private sector is called administration in the civil service. A manager in a company is called administrator in the civil service.
A section in the civil service is headed by a supervisor. Several sections form a department headed by a director. Several departments form a ministry which is headed by a principal secretary. The PS is the administrative head of the ministry while the minister is the political head of that ministry.
The President appoints the minister to ensure that the policies of his political party are carried out in that ministry.
The PS provides all the administrative support-services to the professionals of his ministry to ensure that they provide quality services but in accordance with the policies of the ruling-party.
Each section or department has a staffing level called establishment. It can have vacancies but cannot be overstaffed. There cannot be two people on one job. Promotions are competitive. Each post has a grade with a gazetted salary-scale.Dismissals or demotions come after disciplinary hearings.
The President appoints the Civil Service Commission from among leading Malawians who have vast experience and knowledge of the civil service. It is the Civil Service Commission which advertises vacancies, interviews applicants, recruits, trains, appoints, appraises, promotes, transfers and disciplines all civil servants, in accordance with established, legal procedures. It is not the minister or the President who does that.
All the other public services have similar structures, systems and procedures created by Acts of Parliament. The police have the Police Service Commission. The defence forces have their own council. The teaching service has the Teaching Service Commission and so forth.
The President has powers of approval of the recommendations of certain appointments, transfers or dismissals made by these commissions or boards, but has no direct powers in all cases.
For example, the President of Malawi is also the president of his political party. Although he has powers to appoint the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC), he has no powers to appoint the CEO of MEC or any member of the MEC Secretariat. That is the sole prerogative of the commissioners themselves to ensure that MEC is politically neutral. A CEO who is appointed by the President takes orders from the President and Malawi cannot have clean elections.
If today Malawi has over ninety principal secretaries blame the Presidents. The Civil Service Commission would have known that Malawi has only 20 ministries and ministers.
This culture of silence is inimical to the social, political and economic development of Malawi. We all suffer from presidential mistakes. A budget director does not have to be appointed by a president.
The Malawi Law Society, Public Affairs Committee (PAC), Attorney General, opposition parties, the press and all others have a duty to tell presidents what the law says and what their limits are. Otherwise our public services cannot become the professional, efficient and incorruptible organisations we want them to be.
Our President has the Cabinet as his official and constitutional advisory organ. In their advice his ministers are backed by the vast resources of knowledge, experience and expertise of their ministries.
But there is a reason our presidents sometimes ignore these official organs. Their friends tell them to. The worst occupational hazard of presidents is their own friends. Party supporters want gravy. Friends and family want favours. They all offer unsolicited advice.
Gregory Rasputin was a semi-literate peasant in Imperial Russia. He left his village for the Capital and ended up in the Imperial Palace. The reason was that the Royal Family had a sickly son whom Rasputin was treating through his mystical powers.
Rasputin became the most powerful person in Russia simply because he had tremendous influence on the Tsarina who had tremendous influence on the Tsar. Ministers, Prime Ministers, Army Generals, even Bishops were appointed or dismissed by the Emperor at the instigation of Rasputin. The country went into ruin.
One evening Rasputin was lured to the home of an aristocratic acquaintance. He was shot point-blank but refused to die and fled. He was chased, finished off by the river and tossed over a bridge into the freezing water.
But it was too late to repair the damage he had done. The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 came. Communism came. The monarchy was abolished. The entire Royal Family was slaughtered.
Rasputin is an extraordinary case-study in Political Science of a power-behind-the-throne. An ignorant, semi-literate man changed the destiny and history of Russia without holding any formal office.
It is temptingly easy to say none of this can happen here. The truth of the matter is that every president, if not careful, gets used by his associates for their own purposes. And a president is only as good as the advisors he chooses.
President Peter Mutharika is an academic lawyer by profession. He is, undoubtedly, aware of these occupational hazards. He will know when his friends and family-members try to use him for their own purposes. There is never any shortage of people who would like to manipulate a President and become “powers-behind-the-throne.” There is no shortage of people who would love an undeserved promotion or appointment by presidential directive.
The success or failure of the Public Sector Reforms depends on President Mutharika himself. How he will or will not use presidential directives in the public services for the benefit of his supporters, associates, friends and family will decide.
*Sam Mpasu is president of New Labour Party, former Speaker of National Assembly and former Cabinet Minister. He has published several books.