Tuesday, March 19, 2024

The recruitment of 41 000 workers for the Government has hit a Snag

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By Amb. Emmanuel Mwamba

When Minister of Finance, Hon. Situmbeko Musokotwane announced that Government will employ 11,200 health workers and 30,000 teachers, there was genuine excitement from across the board.

The two sectors have trained staff roaming the streets without jobs as government is the dominant employer in the two areas. But this optimism has quickly waned with the various uncoordinated announcements and pronouncements from the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education.

Minister of Education, Hon. Douglas Siakalima was the first one to put a damper into the process.

He said the process would have to wait until April 2022 as the government had just appointed the Teaching Service Commission (TSC) and would allow the Commissioners to settle down and devise methods of conducting the recruitment. Further, confusion has arisen over the announcements that Government will instead begin with 10,000 teachers within the service who have obtained higher qualifications but require upgrading to higher pay.

Again, earlier announcements indicated that Government may only start with the recruitment of 10,000 out of 30,000 earmarked for this year.

The teacher unions have also made their own demands. The Special Education Teachers Union of Zambia (SPETUZ) has urged the Government to consider allocating 10,000 teachers out of the 30,000 earmarked for recruitment to qualified special education teachers and teachers with disabilities.

Similarly Minister of Health, Sylvia Masebo has not helped matters. She has disclosed that the recruitment of the 11,200 health workers will prioritize recruiting volunteers working in the various health centres, clinics, and hospitals. Without providing any statistics or information to back up the decision or demonstrate how widespread the phenomenon is on the newly discovered volunteers, she says the process will begin with them first. She has even established corruption in the process as she alleges that facility administrators have opened doors to new volunteers in a corrupt and nepotistic manner, to allow the new-to-be entrants to benefit from this new policy pronouncement!

This confusion must stop.

WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE

Dr. Musokotwane has announced that the Treasury has money to conduct the recruitment of both teachers and health workers totaling 41,000. He has announced that he has provided for these funds to both Ministries. Therefore the confusion, daily policy shifts, and uncoordinated statements from the two Ministries must immediately come to an end.

The two ministries must proceed with the recruitment of these workers as provided for in the 2022 National Budget without delay. In Bemba we say; “Umunwe balaile Umusunga, wenda uwa konkomana”. ( a finger that has been promised porridge, will ready itself, move folded like a spoon, or the Bible says; “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life” Proverbs 13;12).

So Government has a duty to get on with the recruitment to allay unnecessary anxieties. These job seekers are made to trek from the UPND Secretariat, to UPND officials, and to the two Ministries to seek urgent solutions to this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Some unscrupulous people have emerged and are even collecting bribes from the hapless young people.

Let the process be transparent, fair, and benefit all and let’s stop the obfuscation and pain for these new recruits.

CONCLUSION

The public Service Management Division (PSMD) may consider forming a special committee to coordinate and handle this mammoth task of recruiting 41,000 in one fiscal year. In the medium to long-term term, the training of teachers and health personnel may require a special policy restricting training as was before. The training of teachers and health personnel was the preserve and exclusive role of government institutions.

The opening of this training to the private sector has produced a huge backlog of teachers and health workers, who can not be absorbed in the rate they are being trained. With the opening of training to the private sector, we are now manufacturing unemployment! As the major employer, Government may consider putting a cap on the number of health workers and teachers that can be trained in a year.

This way, we may prevent the crisis from recurring. As for now, Government must recruit the 41,000 as announced.

24 COMMENTS

  1. How can it hit a snag when UPND said they would employ that number in 2022, and we are still in 2022 which has just started

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  2. It can only hit a snag if UPND hits five years and it does not happen, for clarity and basic advice, UPND has five years in which to be evaluated, so stop panicking. We don’t think UPND will be a failed project like PF which promised more money in peoples pockets and for ten years there was zero delivery

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  3. The prophet of doom can not believe he was recalled. And remember the childish stunt after being recalled, where the guy was wiping tears with ” I had already resigned” , Is this not the same guy who was fired by Sata. Yes he is

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  4. Adverts are coming out soon, this has been stated by the government in very simple language, stop misleading and confusing your self. It is time for UPND now and we will only listen to them as they have the mandate, I am not even UPND myself but I know this is a more genuine party than the widely rejected PF which grounded the country in all sectors

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  5. The clue less Mr know it all, how can it hit a snag when we have just started the year, is this guy already in the fifth year of the UPND rule. Zambians did not and do not want PF because PF inherited a decent economy and decent governance systems from the MMD and grounded every thing. And now a cadre from the same rejected PF government must start commenting. MMD stayed in power for 20 years and PF was there for only 10 yaers, and in the ten years every thing crumbled, that is what incompetency does

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  6. we are in January and you are already wishing for a snag… this guy. Can you go on a retreat and devise a new way of doing it. PF was in power and recruited no one because you corruptly got the money meant for such

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  7. Mwamba is idle, And this is how idle minds work. Imagining a snag that does not exist. Just issuing statements. Instead of folding sleeves and going on the ground to go and try to salvage a drowning party

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  8. Emmanuel Mwamba took leave from his Addis Ababa diplomatic posting to join the Lungu re-election campaign. He did that at his own request because he considers himself as the spin doctors’ spin doctor. He was responsible for all the poisonous campaign messages aimed at discrediting HH. To date he still cannot understand how that did not get Lungu re-elected. Mwamba can still be questioned on 2016 election results scandal where a stranger was caught in ECZ server rooms.

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  9. “The two ministries must proceed with the recruitment of these workers as provided for in the 2022 National Budget without delay”

    All the sudden he is interested in recruitment of teachers when for 7 years he was quiet…what is a few months delay?

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  10. Recruiting ten thousand new employees takes time. And we don’t want to recruit corrupt thieving PF-ers!

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  11. When Ambassador Emmanuel Mwamba says the recruitment of 41 000 workers for both the health and education sectors has hit a snag, what he seems to be alluding to is the mixed messaging accompanying the new government’s plans. One day they wake up and state how many they are going to recruit, another day they seem to backtrack on this by saying they will prioritize the recruitment of voluntary health workers and placement of upgraded teachers within their right salary scales. What all this points to is the failure on the part of the new government to do an evidence-based needs assessment of the education, health and agricutlural sectors before making the announcement about what they are going to do. The new government should first look at the records available in terms of establishments…

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  12. … of the education, health and agriculture sectors to establish who is in post. It should then go on the ground to confirm this and determine where the deficits in terms of available vacancies are to avert being beset with the African problem of ghost public service workers. It should thereafter establish how many health, education and agriculture staff have upgraded their qualifications and determine the cost of placing them in their appropriate positions and salary scales. It should also determine how many education and health facilities were upgraded and new facilities were created by the PF government countrywide and what new establishment and vacancies within the education, health and agriculture sectors need to be created for them to run efficiently and effectively. The new…

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  13. … government should also assess the housing infrastructure needs of workers within the three sectors to ensure their retention, particularly in rural parts of Zambia. If housing cannot be provided immediately, it should look at housing and rural hardship allowances of health, education and agriculture workers in terms of whether they help adequately meet their rentals. This is the kind of evidence-based needs assessment that should have been done by the new government before announcing figures of how many government workers they were going to recruit. For if they fail to meet their stated recruitment targets upon realizing that there are existing bigger problems that first need to be addressed within the system, the new government will look like they did not know what they were doing…

  14. … and were just telling lies. Inexperience with the government system may actually turn out to be politically fatal for the new UPND government if it does not take care to do things in a more systematic manner.

  15. The kingdom of Baal is the that of immense confusion and empty promises/pronouncements where people with experience in Government like Siakalima and Masebo but lack policy implementation and actualization. We all want baal’s administration to be employing 41,000 teachers every year ngaipompa. It’s a good thing but reality is rough in the making. Masebo and Siakalima may not directly be involved in the recruitment process.
    Can baal and his disciples please see to it that our children transparently get employed. Government must employ 41,000 health and education workers because it is budgeted for.

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  16. The promise was made for this budget year. The year ends on 31 December 2022. If you are promised to come home for lunch, don’t you wait for the lunch to be prepared? And it can be eaten anytime before supper time.
    Sit your amatako panshi Emmanuel.

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  17. UPND cult followers and praise singers will do anything for their small god HH….reminds me of sister Credonia Mwerinde and Father Joseph Kibwetere the cult leaders of the Ugandan doomsday cult…HH can easily tell his followers to drink a gallon of sulphuric acid and they will do it without hesitation….

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  18. The Magician HH said everything will be done within 2 weeks…now its story after story,,,,HH said Zambians cant wait so what happened,,,now they have to keep on waiting….ubufi…HH is a demagogue

  19. IS EMMANUEL MAMBA A GOVT SPOKESMAN? IS THIS THE WAY HE IS CAMPAIGNING FOR TH E PF PRESIDENCY? BY TELLING CLEAR LIES? THE PF IS BEST PARTY IN OPPOSITION NOT IN GOVERNMENT! ZAMBIANS MUST MAINTAIN PF IN OPPOSITION FOREVER.

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