Reforms report gathers dust

 Two years after a special task force presented a report on Public Sector Systems Review, the document appears to be gathering dust as President Lazarus Chakwera has not divulged key recommendations.

Governance institutions and analysts have since faulted the President for the secrecy on the report he touted as critical to transforming the country’s “broken systems”.

Presidential press secretary Anthony Kasunda, for almost one week, promised to provide responses to The Nation questions on the status of the report. But as we went to press at 8pm yesterday, there was no response from him.

In an interview yesterday, public planning and international policy expert Dr George Chaima said the secrecy surrounding the report raises speculation on its contents.

“I assume that this report contains a lot of areas which benefit the local people, but put politicians in a tight corner. Because of this, they have decided to sit on it, which is very unfortunate,” he said.

In February 2021, the President tasked Vice-President Saulos Chilima to lead the Public Sector Systems Review Task Force.

Chakwera ordered the formation of the task force amid revelations of abuse of funds meant for Covid-19 response.

The President said at the time there was need for the country to tackle the overarching problem of wastage and corruption in the civil service.

The task force, which comprised eminent persons from both the public and private sectors, submitted the report to the President on May 21 2021 after looking at quick overhauls of public service systems on allowances, procurement and employment contracts.

In an interview yesterday, Chaima challenged the President to prove that he is an honest and resources spent to produce the report. It makes a mockery of all the intellectual dialogue that was invested in the process, and it ridicules the efforts and hard work of the professionals that compiled the report.

“Failure to release the report has provided special motivation to public officers that they can misuse public resources willy-nilly through bad procurements, corruption and other forms of public finance mismanagement.”

Bamusi appealed to the citizenry and rights groups to push government to release the report through court action.

Human Rights Defenders Coalition chairperson Gift Trapence said the failure to release the report is an insult to Malawians as they funded the task force’s activities.

He said: “If the President was not happy with its contents, he could either have sent it back to the task force for further review and consultations, or pick out some recommendations that would improve the broken system.

“By remaining silent for two years, it only tells the citizens that he is not committed to public reforms agenda. As such, Chakwera cannot be in the forefront lamenting inefficiencies and slowness of the public sector.”

Parliamentary Committee on Government Assurances chairperson Noel Lipipa said the committee’s hands were tied as they cannot force the President to make the report public.

He said: “It was the President who ordered and it was sent to him, so up until that time when the President is free to release it, as a committee, we cannot do anything.”

Besides Chilima, the task force also comprised professors Ronald Mangani and Nyovani Madise, Dr Aubrey Mvula, Dr Henry Chingaipe, Dr Steven Matenje, Waki Mushani, John Suzi-Banda, the Reverend Elsie Tembo, Tione Chilambe, Zunzo Mitole, Nwazi Mnthambala and Jane Kambalame.

In an October 10 2022 pastoral statement, the Episcopal Conference of Malawi, a forum of Catholic bishops in the country, also asked the President to ensure that the public sector systems review task force report is made public and acted upon without further delay

The bishops urged national leadership to institute and enforce standard measures in basic service delivery as one way of assessing reforms.