Time for everyone to get down to work

Several Government ministries have since the swearing in of Cabinet ministers been holding strategic workshops aimed at, among other things, mapping out strategies of how to implement various development programmes in line with the New Government’s thrust of improving service delivery.
The Ministers and senior civil servants seem to be raring to go and it is our fervent hope that this dedication and commitment to work will cascade down to the lowest level of the Government structure.

The Zanu-PF Government has made a commitment to fulfil its election promises and it can only succeed if it has enthused civil servants. Each and every civil servant should be committed to doing his or her best in improving service delivery.

The time of high sounding strategic plans which end up gathering dust in shelves of senior civil servants’ offices is over.
Last Friday, ministers, their deputies, permanent secretaries and officials from the Office of President and Cabinet, met in Harare to make contributions to be considered in refining the Zimbabwe Programme for Socio-Economic Transformation. (Zimpset).

The economic blue print is meant to guide policy formulation and implementation of the Government programmes for the next five years.

Addressing the workshop participants, Vice-President Mujuru warned the ministers and the senior civil servants that the Presidency would not tolerate failure.

She said it was therefore important for the ministers and the senior civil servants to fully engage themselves in the mode of a result-based Government in order to meet the people’s expectations.

Cde Mujuru said people pinned their hopes on the Zanu-PF Government which was given the mandate to run this country for the next five years.

“As ministers, you need to work hard given that the economy has a myriad of challenges against the high expectations of the people of Zimbabwe,” she said.

Cde Mujuru said the people’s expectations included enjoyment of higher standard of living from improved infrastructure and better service delivery. She said senior Government officials will be engaged on performance-based contracts to ensure quality service delivery.

“Introduction of performance-based contracts will ensure that senior Government officers as custodians of policy formulation and implementation, are accountable for their actions to the people they serve,” said Cde Mujuru.

The civil servants, we want to believe, are bracing for the new challenges of meeting the people’s expectations. It should however, be appreciated that the challenge to deliver to the people’s expectations is not limited to civil servants but is a challenge facing all workers.
Companies, many of them that have been struggling, can only survive if the workers are able to deliver. It should be only competent workers, be it public or private sector that should remain on the job.

The days of nurturing dead wood are gone because the times in which we are demand results and it is only those that meet the set targets that are guaranteed continued employment.

Government has already conceded that the Medium Term Plan crafted during the inclusive Government era failed to attain its goals and we want to believe Government ministers and senior civil servants noted the failed plan’s shortcomings so that we do not fall in the same trap as we implement Zimpset.

We want to once again implore the ministers and the senior civil servants to maintain the momentum so that at the end of the day the Government is able to deliver much to the chagrin of the country’s detractors.

The nation, as we have repeatedly said, has no reason to fail to revive the economy given the abundant natural resources.
The companies that were closed should be re-opened in the shortest possible time while those that have been operating below capacity should be assisted to boost production.