By OLIVER SAMBOKO
THE Patriotic Front claims the new dawn government has no solution to the problem of high indebtedness by civil servants hence its decision to revert to the former ruling party’s debt swap plan after earlier discarding it.
Leader of the opposition in Parliament, Brian Mundubile said yesterday the new dawn government suspended the debt swap promising that they had a better plan, yet the administration has failed to come up with a different and better solution to the debt crisis facing the civil servants.
“Instead of coming up with a better solution that would supersede what the PF did, what the country is now witnessing is that the UPND government has reversed its earlier position by reinstating the debt swap,” Mr Mundubile said.
He also warned government that without a motivated civil service, the UPND government should forget about achieving the developmental programmes they promised the people of Zambia during the last general election campaigns.
Speaking in Parliament yesterday, during the Vice President’s question time, Mr Mundubile who is also Mporokoso Member of parliament said civil servants play a very important role in service delivery and implementation of government programs.
“They should know that with a demotivated civil service, they should not expect to achieve any development,” said Mr Mundubile.
He said it’s the reason why the PF decided to implement a debt swap to give relief to civil servants and aimed at motivating them.
Mr Mundubile explained that that the PF government and workers through their unions, held very tight discussions that lasted for over two years before finally arriving at the position that was taken in an effort to boost morale among the civil servants.
“After the realization that the civil servants were highly indebted, the government of the Patriotic Front went into an arrangement of debt swap to create relief for our civil service workers,” explained Mr Mundubile.
He said in a given situation such as that at hand, any reasonable government would move in quickly to offer some form of relief.
Mr Mundubile urged government to quickly come up with a permanent solution to high indebtedness by civil servants especially soon after the national budget is presented to Parliament.
He said it was unfortunate that the new dawn government decided to cancel a well-intended programme that was aimed at motivating civil servants to create moral in the public service.
