Staff audit reveals 661 public officers misplaced, creating artificial shortages in Education ministry, health, others

About 661 government officers are misplaced as they are on payroll for facilities where they are not offering the service, the Civil Service Commission has said.

Commission Chairperson Dr, Choolwe Beyani, said this when he paid a courtesy call on Western province Permanent Secretary, Simomo Akapelwa, on Monday.

Beyani disclosed that most affected institutions included the Ministry of Health with 449 cases, followed by the Ministry of Education at 82 cases and the third being the Ministry of Agriculture with 45 cases.

He said these were for officers that fell under the the Civil Service Commission and were not part of the teaching staff.

“As a Commissioner, we are in Western province to conduct a staff audit and a performance support sitting which is aimed at clearing outstanding non-delegated human resource cases,” Beyani stated.

He noted that the misplacements had created an artificial shortage of staff thereby affecting service delivery of government programmes in the province.

Beyani said the Commission had conducted the exercise at a critical time when it was looking at actualising the Presidential directive to employ the volunteers who provided a service at the cholera centers.

He added that the validation of process to determine the actual number of volunteers was almost complete.

“My appeal and encouragement to the volunteers is just for them to exercise patience as the commission is working round the clock to ensure that all the necessary processes are completed in the shortest possible time,” Beyani said.

Western Province Permanent Secretary, Simomo Akapelwa, said the province did not experience severe cholera cases and as such volunteers in the health were few.

Akapelwa said the commission should ensure that all vacant positions in government in the province be filled so that government programmes were fully implemented.

Meanwhile, Deputy Permanent Secretary, Richard Mulwanda who is also Western Province Human Resource Committee Chairperson said about 1000 government workers had been confirmed in the province.

Mulwanda also said about 90 percent of government workers had been paid their allowances.

“You know government has been very generous in ensuring that funds were provided to clear all outstanding bills owed to workers in the province and we have been engaging the offices of the District Commissioners to ensure that names of officers are submitted for payments, “he said.

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