Chilima takes public sector reforms to ministers

Vice-President Saulos Chilima is from today scheduled to engage three Cabinet ministers daily to orient them on the Public Sector Reforms Programme.

In an interview on Saturday, Pilirani Phiri, spokesperson in the Office of the Vice-President, said the engagement was aimed at motivating the ministers to champion the reforms in their respective ministries.

He said: “The Vice-President is having a busy schedule holding discussions with three Cabinet ministers and their teams per day on issues pertaining to the reforms. On the details of these meetings contact the Public Sector Reforms Department.”

Chilima’s meeting with the Cabinet ministers comes after he recently met directors of finance and chief executive officers (CEOs) from statutory corporations in Blantyre and Lilongwe.

He also met private sector leaders on the same.

In a separate interview, spokesperson in the Public Sector Reforms Unit, McCarthy Mwalwimba, said it was expected that at the end of the meetings, they will be on the same level in implementation of the reforms as stakeholders.

He said the meetings will be held in the Office of the Vice-President’s conference room at Capital Hill in Lilongwe. He said Minister of Finance Felix Mlusu will be the first to meet Chilima at 11am followed by Minister of Transport and Public Infrastructure Mohammed Sidik Mia.

In a separate interview, Ernest Thindwa, a political science lecturer at University of Malawi’s Chancellor College, said through the engagements Chilima was trying to create consensus on implementation of reforms to achieve unity of purpose.

He said: “The initiative should, therefore, be seen as an attempt to secure the buy-in from key power brokers to drive the reform agenda.”

During his recent meetings with parastatal heads in Lilongwe and Blantyre, Chilima, who is also Minister of Economic Planning and Development and Public Sector Reforms, demanded status reports from the parastatals that he said would feed into the 2020/21 National Budget.

However, out of 66 parastatals, only 56 delivered on time, a development that led the Vice-President to instruct the comptroller of statutory corporations to discipline CEOs.

In an earlier interview, Mwalwimba said the disciplinary process will involve the parastatal CEOs as they are the leaders.