High time recruitment in public service was sanitised

Dear judge Mbadwa,

My lord, it was refreshing to hear Chisomo Mlerakhungwa delivering her report into the shenanigans that have been happening at the Nyasaland Oil Company and how politics and power play ruined what should have been an otherwise apolitical recruitment process.

My lord, what we have learnt from the Nyasaland Oil Company is that often politicians have gotten away with illegal decisions on the basis of directives whether presidential or otherwise.

It was clear that a former secretary to government, a former comptroller of corporations and a former president, or (put bluntly, Mapuya,) acted strangely, as per determination of Chisomo, in hiring a deputy chief executive officer of the institution.

Regardless of the person’s suitability, according to Chisomo, it is still a mystery how the name was arrived at because there is no evidence that the candidate applied for the job and the position was not advertised, anyway.

We have often squirmed at some directives that have made the politically connected relevant in the corporate governance business. But if Nyasaland is to play to the governing laws, the entry into public service ought to be by merit.

Senior government officials in collusion with presidents have been abusing their power by doing functions of boards of institutions in hiring some officers yet the law is clear, especially Section 6 of the Nyasaland Public Service Act that people like Mapuya (or Lazaro now) only have the power to appoint any person in the public service to a post above the rank of under secretary.

My lord, then there is another way of regularising illegal appointments. You have an overzealous officer, probably a minister, who facilitates appointment of a relation of a president or other big people to a diplomatic post.

Instead of discouraging their relations from accepting the positions, the big people decide to say nothing on the pretext that they were not involved in the hiring of their kin and kith. This, too, is an abuse of authority that has to be stemmed.

My lord, we shouldn’t wait for Chisomo to tell us the obvious; that as  long as we engage in unprocedural or irregular hiring of people in the public service such will be rendered maladministration.

Otherwise, I was excited that Chisomo is asserting herself as somebody who will not allow shortcuts in execution of the duty of public officers as per her mandate.

But my worry is: Do those with power really care about the determinations that are made by the likes of Chisomo?

Let us wait and see,

Regards,

John Citizen.

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