By Wilkins Mijiga
There has been a steady barrage of displeasure at the recall of some eminent veterans of our Civil service into service.
The thesis of the argument is that “This is a Third Republic” and as such there is need for new blood etc and new energies.
That line of argument assumes heightened pertinence when the state of youth unemployment is taken into the equation.
But then let’s also consider the merits of the act of selectively recalling some of the brilliant veterans of the Civil service to “Pump prime” the Third Republic Civil Service.
THE PUMP PRIMING RATIONALE
The Civil service was properly built in the first Republic (1964 to 1994). It was disciplined, professional, committed to the development and transformative cause, and most importantly loyal to the flag and the people of Malawi
Then the second republic (1994 to 2020) came and the service became a moribund of a system: became totally corrupted, lost meritocracy, acquired an exorbitant appetite for chicanery and debauchery and eventually became totally dysfunctional.
At this point in our history the Malawi Civil service needs a reboot and in the reboot process there is need to “Pump prime” it with an injection of some of the good elements from the 1st Republic and most of these are in their early phases of retirement and have to come back and take us through the paces in the early days while they gradually ease out to let a new cadre of leadership with the right values in the civil service take over.
I am saying this because in 2015 to 2017 when I sat on the ADL board I had the opportunity of working with SPC Chikhosi ( then Comptroller of Statutory Corps) and prior to that in 97/98 I learnt about SPC Chikhosi from my late buddy Clement Kamala ( Peace be upon him ) when SPC Chikhosi was budget director. So knowing the SPC, I have enormous regard and respect for his level of professionalism, discipline, integrity and most importantly his passion to the flag and service to the people of Malawi.
The selection of the others, alongside SPC Chikhosi, back into service seem to follow a similar thread
We need such qualities to be conveyed to the new generation and then let the selected few old guards re-retire into the comfort of knowing the ship is steadied for cruise into the future
The Quasi State entities aka Parastatals are a different ball game all together: because their operations are supposed to be purely commercially oriented, the deployment there needs not be a Pump Priming approach: rather it must be a total and complete overhaul of the incumbent moribund cadre with a complete tapestry of virgin talent to rein the sector.
This calls for a total root and branch uproot and overall of the sector. The beauty is that there is abundant talent out there for the taking to fire power the Parastatals.
