Secretary to the Cabinet Roland Msiska has noted that failure by Senior government officers to embrace mindset change will slow the implementation process of decentralization.
Dr Msiska says mindset reform is a key component in the implementation process of devolution. Dr Msiska said this during the official opening of a meeting of the decentralization policy implementation committee in Lusaka today.
Dr Msiska, told participants that the people of Zambia are eagerly waiting for the full implementation of devolution. He pointed out that the successful implementation of decentralization will result in every corner of the country receiving a fair share of development.
Dr Msiska challenged Permanent Secretaries to initiate measures that will effect mindset change at all levels of the public sector so as to enhance service delivery. And speaking at the same meeting Deputy Secretary to Cabinet for administration Patrick Kangwa implored participants not to relent in the implementation of the decentralization reforms agenda. The one day meeting attracted Chairpersons of service commissions, Provincial Permanent Secretaries and other senior government officials
Allow me a little latitude to comment… This is a mere suggestion and there are intelligent Zambians who can see what I mean and could modify it to make it workable. We need a Zambian History Channel… In Europe and America these televised channels are called History channel, Yesterday, National Geographicl Channel etc etc…
What is mindset change…
Dweck explains it this way… “Mindsets are just beliefs,” . “They’re powerful beliefs, but they’re just something in your mind, and you can change your mind.”
Pronouncing mindset all the time only brings the matter to the fore for debate. Significant and meaningful mindset change can be achieved if government is committed to doing so. Why do I say so?
Mindset change needs a central platform to feed through to individual…
… consisting of friends, families and communities that form towns and later on a country of Zambia.
How do you go about changing mindsets?
We need to look back to the past to inform the future. We need Zambia’s History channel running 24/7 a year broken down into cultures for all the 72 tribes. Politics should also be featured and how the struggle for independence was attained so that children get to understand that it was children like them from a tender age of between 19 to 43 years old who fought and liberated the nation of Zambia.
The channel can also talk about policies introduced and implemented by the Kaunda regime and to what purpose such developments were being conducted. What was their vision???
Each regime under 5 different republics should be scrutinised for all…
… to see with failures and successes televised.
The list goes on and on… that is how mindsets are changed not just pronouncing mindsets and hoping for the best.
The list is long and this is just a portion of how the country of Zambia can change mindsets.
You report for work at 09 to 10 hours, you go for lunch at 12 and come back at 14.30 then you knock off for the day at 15.30. On Fridays you either never report for work or you knock off after 12hours. This is the behaviour of 90percent of senior govt officers which is why their juniors often behave in the exact same manner or worse. How can we develop like this? Answer…we can’t. Beat we just privatise all these govt ministries, govt institutions, parastatals etc to those who can do it properly because what is happening is a sin against God’s children, and God will judge the perpetrators accordingly.
@Dr Chonya that is a brilliant idea, the history of Zambia is such a long one and one that continues to grow as we move on with time. The younger generation who are our only hope for a better future must see it in it’s entirety, the achievements such as maintaining peace, our failures to do with poor economic management and more failures such as on corruption and misallocation of resources, poor implementation of projects and failing to fully take advantage of better copper prices in this part of 21st century. They must assess and judge for themselves alone on what they can do to improve the situation. Having such a channel would invigorate patriotism and a culture of understanding.
… to see with failures and successes televised.
The list goes on and on… that is how mindsets are changed not just pronouncing mindsets and hoping for the best.
The list is long and this is just a portion of how the country of Zambia can change mindsets.
You are right Dr. Msiska. I wish everyone was as hardworking as you are. Keep teaching the left behinds I hope their mindset will change overtime. I used to see a lot of it when I used to clean toilets at UTH.
For as long as these councils only remain answerable to PS at Local government and not local PS in whose province they operate, DECENTRALISATION will be difficult to implement. If there is an institution of government that’s highly financially undisciplined is local authorities. They would rather buy a V8 for a mayor than attend to service delivery. In its form PLGO is inept. Let local PS prevail over these guys, that’s when sanity will be there