Govt officials slated for specialised training

Munesu Nyakudya Business Reporter
The Micro-Economic and Financial Management Institute of Eastern and Southern Africa (MEFMI) is set to recruit 15 promising young Government officials to undergo rigorous specialised training at some of the best institutions in the world, an official has said.

“The selection interviews for the MEFMI Fellows Development Programme started yesterday and will be held over a two-day period,” MEFMI director Mr Raphael Owino Otieno said.

He said MEFMI was going to interview 32 candidates shortlisted from 100 that had initially applied, adding that the 15 who will be chosen will be trained as experts in different areas of specialisa- tion.

“We call them fellows and we train them in our fellowship programme which takes a minimum of 18 months to finish,” said Mr Otieno.

“After this, we then attach them to the best institutions that are available in the world. If it is something to do with monetary policy implementation, we attach them to institutions like the (US) Federal Reserve Bank in New York so that they can understand best practices globally.

“They can use that knowledge to see what can be implemented and what cannot be implemented back home,” said Mr Otieno.

He added that as an institution they do training and offer advisory support to central banks and revenue authorities like ZIMRA and ZIMSTAT.

MEFMI is a regionally owned institute currently with 14 member countries: Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

“We offer training for their officials and then we give them advisory support on economic policy issues and give policies that can help the economy grow and lead to poverty reduction. We also help them set up policies that can enable them to do effective policy formulation and management of the economy,” he said.

MEFMI is a regionally-owned institute currently with 14 member countries: Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.