Decentralisation of councils on course-LGSC

Sat, 11 Feb 2017 10:00:47 +0000

LOCAL Government Service Commission has continued with administrative assessment of determining capacity and re-alignment of staff in the 106 councils countrywide in readiness for full devolution, says Chairperson Amos Musonda.

Speaking during a press briefing in Lusaka yesterday, Mr Musonda said the decentralisation policy had scored a number of achievements since it was revised in 2013.

Mr Musonda explained that the establishment of Ward Development Committees (WDC) which is aimed to enhance engagement with citizens in local governance, finalisation and approval of nine sector devolution plans and development of appropriate organisational structure which provided optimum staffing levels for the current functions.

He said staffs in departments performing functions earmarked for devolution in the first phase commenced administrative reporting to councils last year such as disaster and risk reduction management under the office of the Vice President, extension services under the Ministries of Agriculture and Fisheries as well as primary health care, social welfare and community development under the Ministry of Community Development and Social Services.

“Permanent secretaries in the devolving ministries and institutions in liaison with the relevant services commission such as Teaching and Civil Service Commission are in the process of identifying and preparing registers of all staffs which will be verified and advise the Public Service Management Division (PSMD),” Mr Musonda said.

Mr Musonda further said PSMD would accordingly convey letters of transfers and appointments of the transferred officers to the Local Government Service to various positions in the local authorities.

“It is at this point that the staff from devolving departments from Central Government will cease technical reporting to the districts and line ministries and commence formal reporting to the council,” he said.

He said the lining ministries which were devolving functions would still be responsible for the functions, stating that the performance of the devolved functions shall be withdrawn from local authorities which might lack capacity to implement and shall only be re-instated once the necessary capacities had been built by the Commission.

He explained that employees that would be transferred to the councils would continue to be paid their salaries through their respective government payrolls and would maintain their terms and conditions of service.

Mr Musonda said he would soon make a few staff changes at the principal, chief officer and lower and middle management levels to respond to the needs so identified in the process.