Online Reporter
Lincoln Towindo
Deputy National Editor
THE Government is preparing new legislation that will legally bind ministries, departments and agencies to meet performance targets, in a move aimed at strengthening accountability and accelerate the improvement of service delivery.
The proposed Government Performance and Results Bill will give legal effect to performance contracts, mandate regular reporting and independent evaluations, and establish enforcement mechanisms for non-performance, Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet Dr Martin Rushwaya has said.
The proposed legislation is expected to strengthen the Government’s Integrated Results-Based Management framework by moving performance management from an administrative system to one backed by law.
Speaking during the High-Level Forum on Public Sector Reforms and Transformation (Tripartite) workshop in Kadoma last week, Dr Rushwaya said the Government had already made significant progress in institutionalising a performance management culture.
This follows the introduction of performance contracts for senior public officials in 2021. However, he said the next phase of reforms required a robust legal framework to broaden the scope of performance contracting, strengthen accountability and ensure sustained improvements in public sector performance.
“To sustain these gains, there is a need to broaden the coverage of performance contracts, strengthen accountability for non-performance and support the system through the promulgation of an appropriate legislative framework,” he said.
“In this regard, the proposed Government Performance and Results Bill is expected to reinforce results-based management.”
The proposed law, he added, will provide legal recognition for performance contracts, clearly define institutional roles and responsibilities, in line with Integrated Results-Based Management principles, require periodic reporting and independent evaluations, and introduce enforcement measures against non-performance.
“A Government Performance and Results Act will provide the following: give legal effect to performance contracting; clarify institutional roles and responsibilities guided by the Integrated Results-Based Management principles; mandate periodic reporting and independent evaluations; and stablish enforcement mechanisms for non-performance.”
At present, Cabinet Ministers, Permanent Secretaries and heads of Government agencies already sign annual performance contracts with the President.
These set out targets they are expected to achieve during the year.
However, these contracts are largely administrative instruments, with their authority deriving from executive policy rather than an Act of Parliament.
It is envisaged that under the proposed law, performance contracts would have statutory backing. Every ministry, department and agency (MDA) would be legally required to prepare, implement and report against agreed performance targets.
The law would also prescribe how contracts are developed, monitored and reviewed. The practical effect of the proposed law is that performance contracts would no longer be optional management tools but legal instruments that every public institution must comply with.
Furthermore, instead of reporting only at the end of the year, ministries would likely be required by law to submit regular performance reports — perhaps quarterly or bi-annually — to the Office of the President and Cabinet and other oversight bodies.
These reports would measure progress against agreed targets using predefined indicators.
This way, the Government would be able to identify implementation problems much earlier instead of waiting until projects have failed. The Bill also proposes independent evaluations, meaning assessments conducted by entities outside the institution being evaluated. These could include the Office of the President and Cabinet, the Public Service Commission, external auditors, independent evaluators or other authorised bodies.
These evaluations would determine whether reported achievements are accurate and whether programmes are delivering the intended outcomes.
It is believed that this would introduce an additional layer of accountability by reducing the risk of ministries overstating their achievements.
The establishment of enforcement mechanisms for non-performance will arguably be the most significant aspect of the proposed legislation. At present, performance contracts rely largely on administrative oversight.
The Bill proposes legal enforcement for persistent failure to meet agreed targets.
While Dr Rushwaya did not specify what these enforcement mechanisms would be, the law is expected to establish a formal framework for dealing with non-performance once its provisions are enacted.
In essence, the proposed Bill will ensure that Government institutions are judged not by the activities they undertake, but by the measurable results they deliver.
Dr Rushwaya said the independent evaluation of the performance contracting during the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1) cycle had confirmed its effectiveness and provided lessons that would strengthen implementation under NDS2.
The proposed legislation forms part of broader public sector reforms that the Government believes are necessary to improve policy implementation and service delivery.
Better policy coordination
Dr Rushwaya acknowledged that despite notable progress, public institutions continued to face challenges including overlapping mandates, duplication of responsibilities, weak coordination, resource misallocation and conflicting policy positions among ministries.
He said these institutional weaknesses had, at times, undermined policy implementation and created confusion for businesses and the public.
“It is the President’s prerogative to assign the administration of Acts to ministers in line with Section 104(1) of the Constitution,” he said.
“However, as societal needs and expectations evolve, new demands emerge which may seem to obliterate the clear lines of intervention as stated in the various pieces of legislation. Resultantly, duplications and overlapping mandates leading to misallocation of resources, poor coordination and turf wars have been noted.”
To address these challenges, Dr Rushwaya said the Government intended to strengthen policy coordination through the Office of the President and Cabinet, the Public Service Commission and the Ministry of Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion.
He said the Government is also pursuing a series of complementary reforms designed to improve public sector efficiency.
These include developing an integrated Government Delivery Dashboard to monitor implementation of national programmes in real time, establishing a Citizen Engagement Platform through which the public will assess the performance of ministries and other Government agencies, introducing governance scorecards informed by citizen feedback and creating an early warning and rapid response system to identify and address service delivery bottlenecks before they escalate.
The Government also plans to expand digital transformation across the public sector through interoperable e-Government systems, online public services and data-driven decision-making, while promoting joint performance contracts among ministries to improve coordination and eliminate duplication.
Dr Rushwaya said these reforms were intended to ensure that Government institutions focused on measurable outcomes rather than simply completing activities, enabling the public sector to deliver tangible improvements in citizens’ lives.
