Top civil servants sign performance contracts
THE Public Service Commission (PSC) yesterday railroaded senior civil servants including directors at government ministries into signing performance contracts, warning that nonperformers would face the axe. Information and Publicity ministry secretary Ndavaningi Mangwana (pictured) and Primary and Secondary Education ministry secretary Thumisang Thabela supervised the exercise.
Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet Misheck Sibanda said poor performance would not be tolerated following the signing of the contracts.
“Your signing of performance contracts here today is not only an agreement with the government in terms of performance, but with the people of Zimbabwe who from now going forward would be assessing your delivery of various services to them.
“Like any other performance management system, those who perform beyond target will be rewarded as much as those who perform below expectation will be sanctioned,” Sibanda said.
“On the basis of the foregoing, it is clear that chief directors and directors are enormously responsible for the attainment of the immediate and lower level results which are outcomes. It is, therefore, the responsibility of government officials, and no one else to establish that hallmark of performance.”
PSC chairperson Vincent Hungwe said: “It would of course be unfair to expect chief directors and directors to drive the work streams assigned to them effectively without attending to the needs of their subordinates.”
But critics said this was a waste of time because the same directors “are supervised by incompetent people that are failing to deliver.’”
“For people who are not delivering on their own contracts to then make other people sign performance contracts with directors that are not performing is just a complete waste of time,” government critic Effie Ncube said.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa announced plans to introduce performance contracts in October 2021 at the official opening of the Fourth Session of the Ninth Parliament.