A Step In TheRight Direction

PRESIDENT Hifikepunye Pohamba last week met with the Permanent Secretaries of the various Government Ministries, and he did not mince his words in reminding them of their responsibilities and duties in these roles.

He clearly said that Government had to perform better, and implicit in this comment is the acknowledgement that it is not doing so to the best of its ability as most Namibians are well aware.Among others, the President rebuked them for often pretending to be in office when they weren’t, doing private business in office hours, and travelling frequently.He actually told them in no uncertain terms to ‘pull up their socks’. He also reminded them that it was an election year and that bad administration did not go down well with the electorate.We must commend President Pohamba for both the meeting, as well as his demand that Permanent Secretaries perform in their tasks. What is even more important though, is that this not be seen as a one-off meeting, and that there is continuity in the process of monitoring, not only the accounting officers, but also their line Ministers and deputy Ministers.Some of the concerns that President Pohamba outlined included the following:* that there was a need for proper implementation of projects (the President having taken note that unused funds returned to the Treasury often meant that plans were not implemented);* that strategic plans had been delayed and needed to be rolled out to propel public administration and policy to a new level;* that infrastructure, such as schools, clinics and hospitals, were often in a sad state of disrepair and in need of maintenance and/or facilities were under-utilised; and* that Permanent Secretaries were frequently absent from their desks, either for personal or other reasons.The President then asked how Ministries are expected to function if the chief accounting offices are so frequently out of office.We are aware that the founding President placed restrictions on foreign travel, and perhaps unless strict guidelines are put in place once again, it will not be long before old habits return. For this reason it is imperative that the President’s lecture to Permanent Secretaries goes further than simply a rebuke. There must be follow-up in order to ensure that the accounting officers are kept on their toes.He has at least requested them to provide a status of implementation report on priority projects in consultation with the Secretary to Cabinet, but this is open-ended unless a timeline is provided for submission of said report.One of the most worrying aspects, and one that has captured the public imagination, is the fact that the Ministry of Education returned some N$7 million to the Treasury. As the President rightly pointed out, this in turn means that certain projects were not implemented, and given the state of some of the nation’s schools, this was not acceptable.Of course the matter does not rest there. The Ministry of Works, for example, is responsible for most of the upkeep of State infrastructure, and the problem could lie in the fact that they did not execute many of the planned projects.It is high time, as the President said, that Ministries deliver the services they have promised to the people. But certainly not only because it is an election year. The civil service must be kept on its toes on an ongoing basis, and the President, at the next occasion, should take his warnings one step further: those accounting officers who fail in their duties must be dealt with in no uncertain terms.The nation as a whole is getting impatient with the lack of action and the fact that wrongdoing or maladministration is often rewarded with a transfer rather than a disciplinary hearing.So while we commend the President’s initiative, in this regard, we would encourage him to review the work of the Ministry accounting officers on an ongoing basis, which will be the best way to ensuring proper service delivery to the people of this country in the long run.