‘Appoint Permanent Secretaries’

GOVERNMENT should expedite the process of appointing permanent secretaries because their absence may affect government business as they are the authorities in the ministries’ transactions, Centre for Trade Policy and Development (CTPD) executive director Isaac Mwaipopo has said.

Mr. Mwaipopo said permanent secretaries were the controlling authorities in the ministries and the delay in the appointments may slow down government business.

He said the ministries also needed to have the permanent secretaries put in place on time because they provided technical oversight on a number of things.

Mr. Mwaipopo said the permanent secretaries were responsible for providing technical oversight on policy processes in the ministries.

However, Caritas Zambia Director Eugene Kambilika said the President should not be rushed to make appointments in the ministries because the country might go back to the old ways where politically-inclined individuals were being appointed.

Mr. Kambilika said the ministries were very complex and the President needed to be given some time to get to know who was who in those ministries before making appointments.

He said the country was coming from a system where politically-inclined people were the only ones who were getting appointments for the last 10 years and the delay might be because the new government wants to move away from such systems.

Mr. Kambilika said at the moment the President should be given the benefit of doubt as he tries to find the best way of placing human resources in these ministries and departments.