EFZ voices discomfort on cadre appointments

EFZ voices discomfort on cadre appointments
By Masuzyo Chakwe
Mon 19 Mar. 2012, 11:59 CAT

THE appointment of cadres as district commissioners and members of parastatal boards is going to reverse the intended effectiveness that the PF government has been proclaiming and preaching about, says the Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia.

In an interview, EFZ executive director Rev Pukuta Mwanza said it was unfortunate that the PF government could justify the appointment of cadres as districts commissioners and board members of parastatals.

Rev Mwanza said it was well known from history that parastatals were riddled with a lot of inefficiency because people that did not qualify ended up being appointed board members of these institutions.

He said this compromised the profitability of these companies and unnecessary increases in the wage bills because apart from just appointing cadres to such high offices, the same senior management personnel came under pressure to employ other party cadres in order to reward them because of their involvement in party functions.

"And this is going to push the country back into the old problem of over employed parastatal company structures as well as siphon a lot of public funds in order to sustain the operations of the inefficient parastatals companies.

The government will have to get money from other sources in order to pay salaries as well as operational costs for companies like Zamtel and we know that if this had begun with Zamtel; it will be the same with Zesco, ZNBC and it will be the same with NAPSA and other parastatals," he said.

"We strongly feel that this is going to reverse the intended effectiveness that the PF government had been proclaiming and preaching all along, where as the government is trying to save costs in the cabinet by reducing the number of ministries, it means that those gains will not be achieved because we will still be losing a lot at the level of parastatal expenses, so we are totally against that."

He said district commissioners should be professionals and appointed to those positions because of their expertise.

"They should be people who understand development, governance , local government so that they can be able to contribute effectively at the level. The appointment of cadres is going to compromise the delivery of service and therefore we are going to have districts that are underperforming or not performing at all and because these people will be rewarded for being there," said Rev Mwanza.

"It will be difficult for the President or the government to be seen to discipline them. The only other way we will be seeing these people is that they will be sent into the diplomatic service because it seems it has become a culture or practice or the rule of thumb that if anybody fails to tick at any level, then the only other place they can be referred to is the diplomatic service."