YASD salutes Permsec’s travel ban

welcome o ernment’s mo e to suspend local and foreign trips for permanent secretaries and directors for days because it is in line with austerity measures the country is implementing, the outh in ction for ustainable De elopment D has said.

D e ecuti e director Zebedy u wesa yesterday told the Daily ation that the decision was long o erdue and must be commended by all well meaning Zambians as it will sa e the scarce resources the country has.

r. u wesa said the mo e would immensely stabilise go ernment’s fiscal position as resources which were gobbled by such tra els would tric le down to line ministries and departments at pro incial and district le els for programme and acti ity implementation.

e said the mo e was a practical implementation of austerity measures and which would address some of the financial constraints facing some ministries and pro incial administration centres across the country.

e are happy that o ernment is now ta ing practical steps to actualising meaningful austerity measures which it has been tal ing about for a long time. his will not only reduce the resource drain but will also ensure that some of the programmes which were difficult to implement because of these e penses can now mo e.

ur appeal to o ernment is that we need more of such mo es. e need to ensure that more of such costs are remo ed so that we channel such resources to other needy areas in the economy and when such is done, those affected must not thin that they are being targeted, r. u wesa said.

o ernment has banned local and international trips for permanent secretaries and directors in ministries for days after learning that some public officials were out of their stations for more than three months.

cting ecretary to Cabinet atric angwa on riday announced the ban and said he wanted to allow the officers to re ect on their conduct.

e warned in a statement that those who would not obey the directi e would face disciplinary action.

r angwa said the permanent secretaries and directors should be the first ones to implement austerity measures as he urged them to ta e the fiscal discipline agenda seriously.