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Nqobile Tshili, Chronicle Correspondent
THE Public Service Commission (PSC) has said it wants to weed out a culture of slothfulness among civil servants through coming up with a policy to inculcate servant leadership and patriotism.
This is contained in a eight-point PSC document meant to transform the civil service in line with President Mnangagwa’s vision to transform Zimbabwe into an upper middle income economy by 2030.
In the document that was being distributed at the just ended Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) in Bulawayo, the PSC said there is an assumption that the civil service is incompetent and runs on nepotism.
“There is a pervasive perception that the Civil Service does not have a well-defined shared and inspirational culture. This engenders undeserved impressions of arbitrariness, cluelessness, backwardness, listlessness, incapacity, carelessness, profligacy, unresponsiveness, desultoriness, favouritism, clique mentality, fear and corruption esoteric elitism,” reads the PSC document.
It said it was critical for Government to come up with a new culture of doing things and the PSC is spearheading the process.
The PSC said it would design a high performance policy document for its staffers which also promotes patriotism.
“It is very imperative therefore that the commission spearheads the development and integration of a new culture into the entire Civil Service.
“The new culture blueprint must inculcate a set of values and ethics that promote servant leadership and embed patriotism as well as high performance habits and practices in the entire Civil Service,” said the PSC.
“The culture blue print must also have an actionable and measureable programme that fully acquaints all staff with the key elements of national ethos and interests, clearly defines and enforces ethical conduct; imbues a high sense of patriotism and sets out clear performance requirements and consequences for all staff.”
It said the blueprint should enhance professionalism and ethical conduct in the civil service.
The PSC said it also intends to address remuneration concerns which lack standardisation, adding that lack of a standardised institutional framework creates labour disharmony thereby undermining productivity within the sector.
“In addition, the remuneration framework lags behind in the development and management of competitive, harmonised, public sector-wide pay and benefits and management systems that incorporate best practices in the recruitment, development, retention and motivation of qualified personnel via the integration of both monetary and non-monetary incentives for employees during service and in retirement,” said the PSC.
The commission said it wants to develop and manage a competitive system that incorporates best practices in job evaluation, recruitment, payment motivation and retention of qualified personnel in the Civil Service.
It said it also wants to establish and manage a sustainable national medical and pension fund system to guarantee the livelihoods of public sector employees during service and retirement.
— @nqotshili.
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