THE Ministry of Foreign Affairs has started drafting the foreign service bill to establish a career foreign service, Ministry of Foreign Affairs permanent secretary Chalwe Lombe has said.
In a statement issued yesterday, Mr Lombe said the foreign service bill is a constitutional document that will form policy on the implementation and management of career foreign service.
“Following President Edgar Chagwa Lungu’s pronouncement to establish a career foreign service in Zambia, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wishes to inform the public that it has started the process of drafting the foreign service bill,” Mr Lombe said.
He said the Foreign Service Act will, among other things, require that career diplomats are appointed into the foreign service.
Mr Lombe said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with other stakeholders will study foreign service legislation from other countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa to learn best practices.
The bill will sum up the structure, conduct and the means by which the country will conduct diplomacy and international relations.
It will also form clear direction and standard of a career foreign service.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is collaborating with the ministries of Finance and Justice as well as other stakeholders in the drafting of the bill.
too many cadres in foreigner services. even grade twoooooooo
The other day i found out the meaning of the word Cadre; we should not even be surprised that they are everywhere, foreign service, parastatals, government contracts and even statehouse. If you look at the underlying fundamentals of cadre politics; they are actually playing it by the book. There is nothing wrong with the way PF is running things or indeed with the way MMD, UNIP or any other Cadre based party would run things. Cadre politics is not profession based; however it is how much blind support you show to a regime or ruling party that gives you the rewards. We are sitting with a state that cannot run itself whence the current pronouncements that whatever is happening is being done by the PF Government. the situation is supposed to be : Thisngs are being done by the Government of…
Waiting for presentation of the bill to parliament!
Though any person can be appointed by a state’s national government to conduct said state’s relations with other states or international organizations, a number of states maintain an institutionalized group of career diplomats—that is, public servants with a steady professional connection to the country’s foreign ministry. The term career diplomat is used world-widely in opposition to political appointees (that is, people from any other professional backgrounds who may equally be designated by an official government to act as diplomats abroad).
Good idea, your career cadres have been causing us embarrassment. One of our cadre diplomats in Nairobi, Kenya can’t even use a computer, and this is 2015. Ridiculous!!!!
They are just contradicting themselves Lazy Lungu is busy posting the likes of incompetent former IG Stella abroad…no seriousness in policy.
VJ is waiting for his turn to be posted as soon as this is law. He is the most experienced diplomat the country has and why not …
Better he is given a job as trainer to mould would be diplomats! Career diplomats is indeed a good idea as Zambia is not short of educated human resources currently roaming the streets to take up the challenge!
What do you mean by career diplomat?
Does going to that building near Kabwata for 2 weeks make you a career diplomat?
Does studying diplomatic services or even international relations make you a career diplomat or a PR for technical diplomats like economists working in the foreign service helping to market the fortunes of national investment?
Why don’t we just shut up sometimes?
I hope there will be fewer meaningless policies in 2016
Career diplomat
That is spot on! ….and just how many so-called career diplomats does the country have anyway? please enlighten me….indeed what is a career diplomat? Can some clever zambian please enlighten us….
You should also come up with the Civil Service Permanent Secretary Bill which should have protection of tenure of Office. Only career civil servants should become Permanent Secretaries. No more impermanent Permanent Secretaries like Ben Phiri.
@Joe, I am with you! Even in KK’s time when cadre mentality was widely accepted as there was only one party that time, Permanent Secretaries were always seasoned Civil Servants who rose within ranks. Borrowing words from this article “Career Civil Servants” not any one became a PS any how as it has been since MMD came to power. At times even people with no University level of education get appointed to this post where they are required to over see qualified Civil Servants with far much more knowledge technically and in administration. Some of the PSs even lack Leadership due to their lack of exposure in institutional management bcoz they just pick them from nowhere!
Kudos to Edgar Chagwa Lungu, he is always making corrections to the nonsense that other presidents before him have created since independence, leading to much of the mess we find ourselves in as a country. Thanks Eddie my President, you have our unflinching support.
Unfortunately, that tribe called UPMD cannot see sense in anything sensible, as I always say.
Could be that the better educated among those surrounding ECL are becoming irritated rubbing shoulders with cadres such that the ridicule targeted at the way the PF party conducts business (collective responsibility) does not separate them from the party chaff thus now they are finding their voice and senses to inject changes!