Dausi says Malawi govt reforms to intensify in Councils

Minister of Information and Communication Technology, Nicholas Dausi has said government will continue to drive and make sure that its reform program is yielding tangible results in all the councils in the country.

Dausi addressing reporters at Central Office of Information

Dausi made the remarks on Monday at Central Office of Information (COI) in Lilongwe during the press briefing on the progress of the reforms.

“We would want to make sure that the way of doing business should be changed. For instance, in the government ministries, we are encouraging people to attend to their clients. Whether at the Accountant General they must make sure that they attend to people of the deceased estates by assisting them as quickly as possible.

“People must go to the ministries or agencies and get the services they want such as at the ministry of education, agriculture or health, the devolution of power has led to teachers to be getting their salaries in the district councils, and all those are latest developments in the form of reforms,” said Dausi.

He said this is to make sure that accountability and transparency in the way government funds are being disbursed are part and parcel of the reforms.

On the allegation that government is opting for softer reforms and that things are not moving, Dausi said reforms were a development in life, and that with the media advice and collective wisdom government would be able to move forward.

He therefore appealed to members of the press to evangelise on the reforms and the progress it has made so far.

Chief Director for the Public Sector Reforms in the Office of the President and Cabinet, Seodi White said in May this year, the Public Sector Reforms Management Unit (PSRMU) held interface meetings with the 35 local councils.

She said the idea of the meetings was to build capacity within councils as well as review the progress made by the councils in putting their reform areas in the standard implementation and reporting framework which was approved by government which should take on board realistic targets and budgets.

According to White, 12 councils have submitted their revised reform implementation frameworks and that the first quarter progress is due on October 10, 2017, after the PSRMU will conduct a validation exercise on the reported progress.

“Improved service delivery in health, education, agriculture, fisheries and water services; financial management resource mobilization; infrastructure development; local governance and decentralization; environment management and climate change adaptation are some of the areas reforms are focusing on in the councils,” said White.

Amongst the focused areas are improvement in human resources management and administration; participatory planning and development; food security and agriculture production; urban development; disaster risk management; information and communication technology; population growth control and promotion of tourism sector and cultural heritage, according to White.

The implementation of the reforms is an ongoing process and an important milestone that continues to be recorded by the 17 ministries, 53 parastatals organizations and 35 councils in the country.

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