Chilima winds up  Malawi govt reforms progress reviews

Vice President Saulos Chilima says he has finally completed quarterly progress reviews on reforms contracts for ministries and government departments.

The contracts were signed between the responsible ministers and President Lazarus Chakwera, on November 23, 2020.

Chilima, who is also Minister of Economic Planning and Development and Public Sector Reforms, started the exercise with the Ministries on March 9, 2021.

Writing on his Facebook wall, Chilima says: “Like I indicated on the first day, the review process is expected to indicate how the Ministries are moving away from process-based to results-based reforms. This means that this first quarterly review has focused more on progress in terms of processes being undertaken to achieve and implement the reforms.

“After wrapping up this exercise today, the Ministries will now carry out self-assessments to be followed by a joint results-based assessment of their performance.

“The findings will then be sent to His Excellency the President, Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera before the findings are communicated to the public.”

According to Chilima, next on the line are parastatals, district councils, constitutional bodies, the judiciary and the legislature.

Meanwhile, University of Malawi’s The Polytechnic economics lecturer Betchani Tchereni has commended Chilima for reforms review progress.

Chilima–who before joining frontline politics in 2014 worked as the first Malawian managing director for multinational Airtel Malawi–  expects deliverables over a period of time.

The public sector reforms were launched in 2015 and Chilima was the first to champion the reforms before he was replaced.

Chilima has repeatedly said the challenge, today, is not absence of political will because there is an overflow of political will.

“There is wholehearted political leadership commitment this time around, all public servants and technocrats in the public service are pleaded to swiftly absorb the new philosophy of ‘Making Malawi Work’ and avoid what is termed as ‘administrative trap’ where institutional arrangements become inflexible and driven by narrowly defined management that is unable to take into account the new reform agenda,” he says.