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Leonard Ncube, Victoria Falls Reporter
STAKEHOLDERS in the Ministry of Health and Child Care, including development partners are meeting in Victoria Falls to review the health sector’s performance and draft performance contracts for the Ministry’s top management.
The end-of-year strategic planning meeting started on Monday and ends tomorrow with the aim to develop the draft 2023 Ministry of Health annual plan including the programme and sub programmes plans and develop the draft Minister and Secretary’s performance contracts.
The contracts will be developed this Friday.
Government came up with performance contracts for senior civil servants as part of a strategy to inculcate good workmanship and attitude to work by public service workers and improve productivity.
Speaking at the event, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health and Child Care, Air Commodore Jasper Chimedza said during the past two to three years under review, the ministry experienced record high attrition of staff and this compromised service delivery capacity.
He called for the integration of services and the maximisation of the available resources to mitigate challenges.
“The workshop is aimed at reviewing the performance of the health sector for the past two years and coming up with strategic interventions going forward. The year reported a considerable achievement although with a number of challenges to be addressed,” said Air Commodore Chimedza.
He said priority quickly switched to strategies to retain the critical human resource.
He said among other strategies, the Government is working tirelessly to improve the conditions of service for staff.
Some of the interventions include a review of sector-specific allowances, provision of tools for the trade, transport, accommodation, staff canteens and staff training.
He said while the Health sector was starting to witness increasing domestic funding from Treasury and the private sector, there was a need for Treasury to timeously disburse the budgeted allocations.
“Disbursements of the budget by Treasury require attention and we look forward to having increased funding with sustainable disbursements in 2023. The Ministry continues to be grateful to the support by development partners,” said Air Commodore Chimedza.
He said the Government’s vision is to drastically reduce the import bill for critical enablers such as medicines and equipment by strengthening local manufacturing of these products.
-@ncubeleon
Online Reporter