Cabinet appointment to come with shake-up in Malawi civil service: 2 convicted PSs face chop

President Lazarus Chakwera is expected to name a full  Cabinet this week which will be followed with a shake-up of  the civil service as he ring changes to top technocrats, Nyasa Times understands.

Chakwera hinted on Saturday that as he appoint a new Minister of Health, there will also be new Principal Secretary at the ministry.

The current PS at ministry of health is Dan Namarika but is set to be redeployed elsewhere.

The shake-up mayb also affect convicted principal secretaries (PS) Cliff Chiunda and Grey Nyandule-Phiri .

The two remain in the civil service despite  a court ruling recommending their removal.

Chiunda, a former Secretary to Treasury, was  relocated to the Office of the President and Cabinet (OPC)  where he was  Deputy Chief Secretary while  Nyandule-Phiri  is PS at Ministry of Agriculture.

But President Chakwera has hired former principal secretary Zangazanga Chikhosi as the new Chief Secretary to replace Lloyd Muhara, a judge who has returned to the Judiciary and face colleagues he was accused of trying to intimidate when he headed the civil service.

The President has also picked former Solicitor General and director of the Government Contracting Unit Janet Banda as Deputy Chief Secretary replacing Chiunda.

Vice-President Saulos Chilima , who has a ministerial portfolio covering economic planning, development and public sector reforms will also see a private sector-centric formula to the country’s civil service.

Chilima was the architect of immediate past president Peter Mutharika’s public sector reform agenda whose implementation floundered when he fell out of favour with his then boss and lost the portfolio. Thus, he is likely to pick from where he left on the reforms.

Chilima,  a trained marketer and an economist, is now the line Minister for the National Planning Commission—a powerful new government agency that overseas not just implementation of long-term vision and strategy, but is also responsible for formulation of the country’s flagship projects and programmes for implementation.

Through the commission’s grip on the Public Sector Investment Programme, Chilima could have sway on which projects proceeds and which ones fall by the way side.

That also goes for the national budget that the Minister of Finance formulates as it has to be vetted by the commission to see whether it reflects the national vision as well as medium-term plans.