Seodi hails councils for embracing public sector reforms

Chief Director for Public Sector Reforms Management, Seodi White has said District and City Councils have responded positively to public sector reform implementations.

White said the positive developments are now making some Council’s innovative and efficient in their operations citing Zomba City Council as a model in the reforms agenda.

She said this in Blantyre on Tuesday during the opening of a two days review meeting for implementation of the Public Sector Reforms with Eastern and Southern Regions Council Officials.

“I must say the reforms are being embraced well in areas like financial management, infrastructure development, human resources, health and nutrition among other important areas.

“The main aim of this gathering is for councils to share experiences and learn from each other on where each and every council is doing good or bad and at the end come up with concrete recommendations on how to address the challenges they are encountering,” White stated.

While confessing that it is not easy to implement reforms in the public sector, the chief Director attributed progress being made to good collaboration between government’s arms at all levels.

She said there were some Councils that were lagging behind but was optimistic that with time they will pick up since the reforms are there to change and improve government systems for the better.

White added that, “By the time reforms were being launched a lot councils had bank overdrafts as such they were failing to pay salaries for their direct employees. Some could even take five to six months before paying salaries.

“Right now councils are able to make money and pay their direct employees. This is the result of the reforms as it teaches councils to be more innovative and think outside the box for their survival.”

District Commissioner for Phalombe, Gossam Mafuta said the reforms have been a game changer in his district.

“As a district we have several interventions including Agro processing of cow peas as a way of adding value, we have local soap processing plant and we have many viable cooperatives that have bargaining power,” he said.

President Peter Mutharika introduced public sector reforms in 2014 before launching them in 2015 and later it was decentralized in District and City Councils in 2016.

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