The Sunday Mail
Memory Nguwi
In his 2018 National Budget Statement, Finance and Economic Planning Minister Patrick Chinamasa proposed a raft of measures to control Government staff costs.
This is a step in the right direction as staff expenses account for a huge chunk of the National Budget. I’m happy that authorities have realised that the staff cost to income ratio is unsustainable as it leaves no room to fund critical national projects and important services.
Whenever staff rationalisation takes place, those likely to be affected will not take it positively. What I want to assure civil servants is that staff rationalisation is a normal process of running organisations. This is happening everyday in the private sector.
It is important to, however, note that for rationalisation to have the desired national impact, Government must also work on addressing the revenue side. Authorities need to create the right business environment for both local and foreign investors to run profitable businesses without hindrance.
Further, the 2018 National Budget Statement ordered freezing recruitment for all non-essential posts. This is a sound strategy. However, for this to have maximum impact, Government must go a step further and circulate information on all non-essential posts where recruitment will not happen should there be attrition in those posts.
This makes it easy to administer. If discretion to classify posts as essential and non-essential is left to line ministries, it is highly likely that there will be inconsistencies.
Government must ask each of its departments to submit all posts classified as essential and non-essential. It should not end there. There must be proper workforce planning for the next five years, and this plan must be based on overall strategy to deliver economic recovery.
The National Budget Statement has a worrying point, though: “Notwithstanding this Government policy stance, Treasury continues to receive requests to fill vacant posts across the board, which would impose unbudgeted additional requirements to the wage bill.”
This statement indicates a problem for the State. To avoid such requests, Government must, as part of workforce planning, carry out a workload analysis for each civil servant for a full month. The results are likely to show that some people overwork while others are barely utilised. This will enable Government to align roles and focus on high value-adding roles.
Where we have done such studies in the private sector, the results have been revealing and present opportunities to save money. And besides saving money, such a study will allow Government to get value for every dollar paid to staff.
The move to retire all staff above 65 years old is commendable for three reasons. It’s likely that some of these people are already tired and may not be giving their best. They might also be out of touch with recent technological and innovation trends, thereby bringing inefficiencies into Government.
People who are supposed to have retired but have gone beyond the retirement age clog the talent pipeline, preventing young people from joining the Civil Service. Government should be the largest employer of our university graduates, but many departments are manned by tired, old people who should be resting at home.
All affected employees will be assisted as they manage the transition from employment to other ventures. Government has also proposed voluntary retirement.
For the same reasons given above, this is noble, and instead of ending at voluntary retirement, the initiative should extend to voluntary retrenchment. I’m sure a number of civil servants are ready to leave service if they are given packages.
This will significantly reduce headcount to manageable and sustainable levels. The private sector is using the same method. Further, the decision to abolish the youth officer post is commendable as such officers were not playing any significant role. Abolishing the post immediately means Government will realise savings pronto, with the close to US$20 million savings per annum going towards drug purchases and other essential programmes.
Apart from youth officers, 528 public service employees without relevant qualifications will also be retired. The big lesson here is: how did these people get jobs in the first place? This is a mistake that should never be allowed to recur.
Depending on when they were hired, Government, I reckon, has lost millions of dollars paying unqualified people. The number of Cabinet ministers has also been reduced, realising significant savings.
Authorities may need to review the entire Civil Service recruitment process, aligning it with modern trends.Another measure Government has started implementing (but was long-implemented in the private sector) is fuel benefit rationalisation.
The private sector rationalised all benefits soon after adoption of the multi-currency system. The fact that the circular rationalising fuel allocation has not been made public makes it difficult to comment on how reasonable the new levels are in relation to the private sector.
I hope they are far below what is paid in the private sector. And the move on personal issue vehicles is spot on. Fully-expensed vehicles have always been problematic even in the private sector, mainly due to abuse resulting in huge costs to the employer.
Private sector employers have negotiated with banks for their employees to access loans to buy vehicles. This loan agreement is between the employee and bank, and the employer is only a facilitator. If Government follows this model when handling loans, it will not incur a single cent.
I recommend that Government go all the way with this policy up to ministers.
If Members of Parliament can be given loans to purchase vehicles, Cabinet ministers can also be drafted under something similar.
This move will uplift the morale of every civil servant. Government must negotiate loans with banks on behalf of its employees. As already mentioned, this must cover every employee who previously benefited from a personal issue vehicle, including ministers.
Other austerity measures such as reducing the size of delegations to international and regional fora and travelling economy class for most civil servants is certainly commendable. The group of people that has been travelling business class is no special class at all.
If the President has reduced luxury when travelling, why can’t ministers, heads of ministries and equivalent grades, parastatal chief executives, mayors, town clerks, CEOs and Constitutional Commissioners go economy class considering that there are so many of them?
Rationalising foreign missions is welcome and must be done within the context of wholesome Civil Service reforms.
All this must be done within a scientifically-driven Government workforce plan, which I strongly recommend. Development and operationalisation of such a plan will help Government address other outstanding areas.
I strongly feel certain departments are overstaffed for the volume of work they handle. There is also a possibility that these departments have too many managers and management layers. If objectively assessed, these two areas will provide further opportunities for Government to rationalise staffing levels.
In addition, further headcount reduction can be achieved if authorities target poor performers for retrenchment. The future looks bright if the austerity measures are implemented and other opportunities to make the Civil Service more efficient such as leveraging on technology are considered.
Memory Nguwi is an occupational psychologist, human resources consultant, data scientist and speaker. He wrote this article for The Sunday Mail.
