Thursday, March 28, 2024

PS directs the introduction of attendance registers at places of work in Northern Province

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Luapula Province Permanent Secretary, Jazzman Chikwakwa
Luapula Province Permanent Secretary, Jazzman Chikwakwa

Luapula Province Permanent Secretary, Jazzman Chikwakwa is disappointed with the rampant mis-use of government time and resources by civil servants in the province.

Mr. Chikwakwa observed that government workers in the province were in a tendency of reporting late for work and knocking off early before the stipulated time contrary to the Terms and Conditions of the Service number 58 (a) and 59 (a) respectively.

He said by reporting late for work and knocking off early before the stipulated time officers were not adhering to the public service code of conduct.

Mr. Chikwakwa said that this tendency by civil servants in the Province has inhibited government’s effective servicing of the public.

This is contained in his memorandum to all heads of government departments which he also copied to Secretary to the cabinet Dr. Joshua Kanganja.

He noted that officers normally left offices without prior permission from their supervisors.

Mr. Chikwakwa has since directed all Heads of Government Departments in the Province to introduce attendance registers for officers at their respective places of work to monitor and curb the misuse of government time.[quote]

He said the officers should be compelled to sign the attendance registers by indicating the time they report for work and when they knock off daily.

Mr. Chikwakwa also directed officers to avoid unnecessary movements during working hours saying this created inefficiency amongst members of staff.

He said that the measure was aimed at controlling the rampant misuse of government time by ensuring that officers concentrated on their line of work of serving the public in the province.

Mr. Chikwakwa warned to take stern action against officers who would not comply with his directive in the Province .

ZANIS

42 COMMENTS

  1. Am glad Mr Chikwakwa is moving with time,he is one of the few govt leaders who has been speaking and doing sensible things that will take our country forward.

  2. Chikwakwa has spoken….registers at work kaa..naikosa……….I dont know whether staying longer hours in the office translates into more work or hard work. What civil servants need is motivation for them to put in the best at work.

  3. that’s a good move mr chikwakwa and i wish this could extend to all civil servants in the country.If you hav bn to a government office in zed b4 u agree with me that for sure civil servants in zed are so much reluctant!!! just for an officer to attend to u it takes ages whilest what he is doing is watching TV!!!!!

  4. Mr. Chikwakwa is Luapula Province PS and not Northern Province. The lack of discipline is from the top. The suggestion would only work if the so called “senior officers” respect work hours and actually work. The signing in and out will be a formality which will have not impact on the current practice.

  5. #1 JIGGA …If you have been following the news about Jazzman lately he is one official who has been extremly inefficient. Not long ago civil servants in luapula Province were complaining that programs were failing to take off becoz he was not found in his office. Jazzman has been spending a lot of time outside the office campaigning for MMD.There has been a lot of work pending approval from him, checks to be signed etc etc. He is actually the one who should lead by example by being available at his office.

  6. Jazz Kwakwa talks too much about things that wont make any progress. Workers need motivation/incentives to attend work on time.

  7. While it is a good suggestion, it would need everyone to buy-in, especially Cabint Office. What can also help is electronic logbooks so that someone’s time in the office is monitored. Another system is to change the way we construct offices. I like the way banks operate where you are in an open space (may be with glass borders for bwanas) whereby you are seeing everyone not a situation where someone locks his/herself pretending to be working yet they are just playing solitaire on the computer. That would even cover for loiterers if files get stuck on their desks because sometimes people leave their offices to go and buy cement for their houses in Plunerersdale (Chalala) at the expense of GRZ time.

  8. He should instead be disappointed with the late pays that the government workers have perpetually been subjected to…sha!

  9. #7 I beg to differ. People should report for work on time. They do not need any incentive. Equally the government should pay them on time. Time and attendance systems – computerised and manual – have been around for years. ZCCM operated one successfully. You had to fill in a time sheet, which was submitted to payroll department. Your hours were entered into a computer and he computer generated your pay slip complete with overtime and bonus pay.

  10. We do this in the private sector all the time & that’s why organisations in this sector are run efficiently. This should be encouraged if we are to make any serious headway in bringing some level of professional conduct in the Zambian civil service. Work registers are used world over weather they are manual or digital they are a good thing. People must learn that development comes with hard & smart work.

  11. There’s even a song in his honour; “Ba Chikwakwa mwa chita bwino…. Mwa leta ubuyantanshi ku Masaiti…”
    The dude has worked his socks off wherever he has been and is one of Zeds politicians who doesn’t get enough credit.
    This register may not be the solution to the civil service woes but it is definately a good place to start. Keep up the good deeds Mr Chiks

  12. Chikwakwa has a valid point but he too should learn to be in office.In the Zambian civil service,its normal to report for work around ten hours,leave the jacket hanging in the offfice to show that a person is around and then go miles away for private business like monitoring consruction works in Plunderersdale and come back around 15 hours just in time to get the jacket and lock the office and then call it a day.We need an overhaul.

  13. Yet another example of sloppy work by LT. They don’t know the difference between Luapula and Northern provinces because they are contended to just “lift” or “cut and past” their stories from ZANIS!

  14. Time clocks is the way to go. They punch out leave office, the don’t get paid. This will also help eliminate those ghost workers.

  15. Not a bad idea anyway,but Ps need to motivate his staff because these chaps will be in office everyday 8 hrs per day and later he will be complaining that they are just sleeping in the offices because they are not efficient.

  16. Thats a good move ba chikwakwa.
    Government should learn from institutions like the First National Bank S.A.(FNB) where you can actually smell good service when you enter their premises. Avery civil servant should have a barge with their name on it and also any govenment office should have a complaints & compliments box where all tax payers can have a in the country.

  17. Well MMD PR Stunts don’t seem to have an end. Chikwakwa Jazz was recently reported to be frustrating development programmes in his province by always being absent from his office on MMD errands and now he is the one shouting the loudest about reporting for work in time.

    They are all the same. RB has also been asking Kanganja why he did not suspend Kapoko and his accomplices over the K10bn scam when he, RB himself did not suspend Dora over the RP Capital saga and is still clearly supporting her.

    What was Dora doing at the ZIBAC conference?

  18. Good idea, no matter who or where it is coming from. We need a government that can think forward and not one that is stuck in the past.

  19. GREAT!
    I hope they also change to hourly wages coz govt offices are always dead slow on fridays.
    NOTHING GETS DONE!

  20. How do you expect them to stay in the office,when the top Man is always on tour.A child will alway follow the footsteps of the father.

  21. The problem is that GRZ workers are not set any targets. They have no direction. How can you sit in an office when there seems to be no work to do. It is the top managers who are poor at man management. Set the chaps targets so that even if it seems there is no work to do, find something.

  22. #10 what sense will it make to spend money on a time card system but not address workers’ grievances? Time cards or no time cards low morale doesn’t get anyone to work on time.

  23. This is a good iniative, let them clock in and out , lunch breaks should also be signed for and let them be paid by the hour, no work no pay. Let them also submit weekly status reports accounting for all the 40 hours. God bless Zambia.

  24. What else can a civil servant do….read nespapaer, go back home at 11 oclock, go check how the new plot is doing, come back at office at 3.30 and go to city market at 4, only to come to the office 2morro at 10.30. Hahahaha

  25. #25 It is easy. If anyone hates their job, they should quit and let somebody who needs the job take over. After all those people working for the Chinese and other private sector employers are compelled to start on time. We need to view dishonest civil servants and stealing from the poor ordinary tax payer! I do acknowledge the fact that the government very often does not pay civil servants on time, but that’s another matter.

  26. #28 I meant: We need to view dishonest civil servants as people stealing from the poor ordinary tax payer!

  27. If these people have nothing to do then they should be retrenched. May be the money can be used to hire more useful civil servants, such as teachers, policemen and medics.

  28. If you love Zambia you should support Mr Chikwakwa on this one. If Mr Chikwakwa himself dosn’t seem to be a follower of his own advise then lets pass the message to him and his seniors. But his idea should not be dismissed.

  29. Do they have stationary for signing on? This problem highlighted by Chikwakwa is not unique to Luapula Province. It exists throughout the country. Chikwakwa should be careful about how he brings changes in the Province because the workers might begin to resent him and he will not achieve what ever he wants to do in the end.

  30. Why is Jazzman Chikwakwa still a PS. Was he not a minister in Chiluba’s and Manawasa’s Government. These are people RB should fire. LPM had promised a proffesionalise the govt but he instead hired MMD chaps in civil service positions. Instead of proffesionalising the position of District Administrators he just changed the name to District Commissioners and appointed relatives and MMD chaps as DCs, the diplomatic service is full of MMD chaps and LPM relatives. Where as Chiluba was a thief, Mwanawas was a tribalist through and through. RB is not doing anything to reverse the situation of proffesionalism in the civil service. All politicains should be removed from the civil service.

  31. When did Jazzman Slasher become a PS? I thought he was some MP or an MMD cader of some sort. Ayway, what civil servants need is more perks and improved conditions of service to motivate them rather than some scary captain shouting orders at them to come in and leave on time.They could easily do that but stil do nothing in their offices.

  32. Remember the days of “Mr. Kupe”? The time card, clocking, or register idea is good to implement when people fail to practice self discipline. It is very prevalent that you go to the offices to talk to an officer and only to be told that tabaliko ,sibaliko, or abateni. Let’s put the idea to practice and see how it helps punctuality and presence at work.

  33. May be a good idea. Too much idleness in govt. offices.Time people showed some responsibility.

  34. Not a bad idea, but truly there is a lot of skyving in zambian govt offices. One leaves the office at any time and tells the so called secretary to tell who ever comes for them a lot of stories. The mines could be falling now, but believe me time keeping is a priority. There are no registers but people there are trully responsible. No one needs a whip, but just self motivation to go to work. If our govt had the kind of money, they could just introduce the swipe card to automatically log on the time of entry to the office, but with this cash crisis everywhere this would be a dream not come true.Ba yama ba Jazz, keep it up.

  35. If civil servants want public support on their side, the basic thing they can do is have good work ethics—an attitude towards public service that actually serves the public. The complaints about civil servants’ “I don’t care” attitude towards work are not new in Zambia. Does anyone remember the UNIP era?! Just asking for higher pay while your work ethics stinks “ain’t gonna cut it” (as Americans would say). Here in America (and other countries, I am sure), electronic time-cards are part and parcel of almost any job. You clock-in in the morning, clock-out for lunch, clock-in again after lunch, and you finally clock-out at the end of your shift/work-day. I completely concur with bloggers advocating for “hourly pay”—you don’t show up for work, you don’t get paid,…

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