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Lincoln Towindo
The problems plaguing Zimbabwe’s Civil Service can be traced back to the 1980s during the transition from colonial to majority rule.
At Independence in 1980, the Civil Service inherited from the colonial regime was too small to cater for a clientele that had bulged overnight.
As Government embarked on a frenzied blitz to ensure that every citizen received public service, policies like “free primary education for all” saw demand for teachers escalate astronomically.
As such, the new majority Government introduced radical changes to facilitate entry of more indigenes into the Public Service.
The Service therefore expanded from 46 000 posts in 1980 to 79 000 by 1983, rising to 190 000 by 1990.
While at lndependence only 30 percent of established officers were Africans, 86 percent of these were blacks three years later.
However in 1987, Government commissioned an inquiry that unearthed irregularities within the Service, among them an oversized workforce and excessive centralisation of functions that led to lethargic decision-making.
There was also massive wastage of resources due to overlapping and duplicated functions between and within ministries, and lack of skilled personnel to carry out specialised roles.
The Public Service Review Commission of Zimbabwe Report (1989) – widely known as the Kavran Report – recommended that Government decentralise staff recruitment from the then Public Service Commission to permanent secretaries and departmental heads.
The PSC would then solely focus on salaries and welfare.
Government adopted this recommendation but this in turn, led to uncontrolled staff hiring by departments.
Zimbabwe’s Constitution of 2013 restored the recruitment function to the Civil Service Commission.
Section 203 (1) (a) of the Charter reads: “The Civil Service Commission has the following functions —
“(a) to appoint qualified and competent persons to hold posts in the Civil Service.”
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