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Dr Clever Chirume
Following the changes in Zimbabwe’s civil service administration lately, I have decided to do an article detailing the developments in the sector.
The civil service has been experiencing the notable process of adjustments and optimisation both strategically and operationally.
The development is interesting when one considers that in the initial phase of his term in office, President Mnangagwa avoided drastic changes to the leadership of the civil service, opting instead, for gradualism as a preferred structural transformation model. It is important to cast a glance at governance types across the globe.
For instance, any new administration in American politics has over the years characteristically implied a complete overhaul in the leadership of the civil service in America.
In some other jurisdictions, particularly in Africa, political change might not necessarily imply changing the leadership of the civil service, especially as this is to avoid offsetting the governance system with multiple adverse effects. Quite notably, the politics of Zimbabwe had over the times experienced some significant change, yet (albeit ironically) the implementation had remained stagnant.
Today, seismic changes have occurred, where Dr Misheck Sibanda (who has been at the pinnacle of Zimbabwe’s civil service administration), has retired.
Dr Sibanda had taken over from Dr Charles Utete who happened to be Zimbabwe’s first Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet.
Dr Sibanda has been replaced by Dr Martin Rushwaya as the most senior civil servant.
These changes should have, in my humble opinion, excited media attention or even scholarly analysis, at least because Dr Rushwaya is now the most distinctly notable bureaucrat that Zimbabwe has.
Secondly, perceptive media analysis was also needful because Dr Rushwaya is the choice of the Presidency at a time when the President and his lieutenants, Vice Presidents Constantino Chiwenga and Kembo Mohadi’s focus is increasingly legacy-based.
I observe Dr Rushwaya to have been groomed from a humble background to appreciate so well “village politics” from where about 80 percent of our people, are drawn.
The man enters the top civil service echelons by rewardingly drawing administrative anchor from the bedrock of grassroots ethics, with a default keen eye on the needs and sensibilities of the everyday citizen on the streets.
His leadership thus departs from a delivery-oriented inclination, saddled with the common man’s concerns.
Without any shadow of doubt, “village politics” is about “you” and “me” whom the great philosophers Karl Marx and Frederich Engels referred as the “lumpens” or better still “vokujecha”.
One, in the final analysis, may not be faulted to assume the current Chief Secretary is self-made.
He must be understandably eager to make a difference.
Just as President Mnangagwa endeavours in a sophisticated governance model to deliver both a promise and a legacy, Dr Rushwaya is equally propelled by the same objective.
Being a scholar, he deciphers implications and applications, broaching pragmatic ways to merge existing and emerging thoughts of his principals.
. Part 2 will focus on Chief Secretary, Dr Martin Rushwaya.
Dr Clever Chirume is a correspondent interested in issues of society.
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