Masisi hires Chief of Staff, Whither PSP?
Nation concerned about duplication of duties Chief of Staff is political appointee reporting to the President
Beginning August this year, the Office of the President will have a Chief of Staff as part of changes by President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi to rationalise and make OP more strategic than operational.
While a welcome development, it begs the question, ‘ Won’t this lead to duplication of duties’?
The hiring of a Chief of Staff, who should be in office by August 1st, has left many wondering whether Masisi is phasing out the position of Permanent Secretary to the President ( PSP), who is also Head of Civil Service as well as Secretary to the Cabinet. The office of Chief of Staff is common in the United States where it is a political appointee and is responsible for directing, managing and overseeing all policy developments, daily operations, and staff activities for the President.
The office coordinates and communicates with all departments and agencies of the Administration. “The ability to lead in an effective and trustworthy way is important when working as a Chief of Staff”. Additional members of the US Cabinet include the White House Chief of Staff, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, the Director of National Intelligence, and the US Trade Representative, as well as the heads of Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Management and Budget, Council of Economic Advisers.
In his national address on Tuesday, Masisi said government has completed the rollout of the Reset Agenda to Accounting Officers, Chief Executives of State Owned Entities, Heads of Local Authorities and Heads of Botswana Diplomatic Missions abroad.
He said there are however, ongoing structural reforms to the Public Sector to improve the implementation of Government programmes.
This entails, among others, the rationalisation of the Office of the President ( OP) to make it more strategic than operational.
“Reviews for the rationalisation of the Office of the President have been completed. The capacity of the Presidential Private Office will be enhanced to be more responsive to the public. A Chief of Staff will assume duty on 1st August 2021”, Masisi announced. Chief Executive of Botswana Accountancy Oversight Authority ( BAOA) Duncan Majinda could not shed much light on the attributes of the ideal Chief of Staff candidate. The exact role that the Chief of staff is going to play is not known at present.
“We do not know how we can get a job description of this particular position. This also brings the question, is it going to be an office, or a department, if an office what sort of an office is it going to be or is it just a position?”
He said if it’s a CEO, it means it is going to have a fully fledged office and have staff who can engage to achieve what is needed.
“The job description will also show who the Chief of Staff will be reporting to, what his relationship with the Permanent Secretary to the President will be, or is the system getting rid of the PSP?”
Majinda said other questions include what his or her relation to others in other offices in the OP will be? “To be frank with you, it is very difficult to comment until we have the brief of what he is going to do”, he said.
Commenting on the roll out of the Reset Agenda and the structural reforms to improve implementation of government programmes, University of Botswana’s Dr Tachilisa Balule felt that the National Strategy Office should be involved in this because the issue of implementation falls under its mandate.
As for the creation of the office of Chief of Staff, he said it is not clear from the speech what the link between this new office and implementation of government programmes is.
“It is said the office is to make OP more responsive to the public, the question is how? The office of Chief of Staff to the Office of the President can be traced to the US.
“There, the Chief of staff’s duties include managing the
President’s daily schedule and deciding who is allowed to see the President.
“If this is the envisaged role of the Chief of Staff, this may lead to duplication of duties because the President already has a Private Secretary and Press Secretary, all who perform functions of a Chief of Staff”.