By Shaddon Chanda
The politicisation of the Civil Service by political parties which get the instruments of power to run the country may be cancerous but healing is very possible. Healing begins with the leaders in the parties who suffer from an infectious disease which goes down into full scale abrogation of rules and regulations which govern the civil service. The old parties- ANC and UNIP were very conversant with the facts that the civil service was to operate independently and was there to play non-political sports in the broad field of service focused on development of the country which was to subordinate individual narrow and shallow interests to national interests. A professional service fully insulated against political interference is very possible where laws must be enacted by Parliament to protect career civil servants from the ineptitude and gross interference of political big wigs and heavyweights in the running of the civil service. The secretary to the cabinet is the chief civil servant and all matters pertaining to the civil service must be handled by his/her office. Zambia is replete with highly qualified career civil servants and lifelong civil servants in retirement such as Leslie Mbula, James Mapoma, (now a centurion still with an alert and awake mind and with capacity to offer sound counsel even from a seat of rest), Jack Kalala, Peter Kasanda, Villy Lombanya, the list is endless.
Zambia over the last 40 years has had problems with having servant-leaders. A servant leader is servant first. He/she leads as a shining example. A servant leader shines like a beacon in the dark tunnels of adversity, hopelessness and helplessness. A leader first is diametrically different from servant-first. The servant-first serves the highest priorities of the citizenry and subordinates personal interests to ensure that the broad masses are served as the masters of the government. A leader in the civil service must gauge oneself as to whether the people at large who are barely able to make ends meet are given prior attention as meeting the needs of such people is what makes a public servant judged and honoured as a selfless people first-servant. Even in the department a servant-first leader there must be clear-cut programmes where the senior most public servant is seen to gauge oneself as a selfless servant of the people. The subordinate officers and ancillary staff must be seen to be growing in their job experience, job satisfaction, their health, wisdom, self-supervision, humility and honesty. Honesty and humility are fleeting shadows in our public service. The registry clerks in many government departments opt for receiving bribes to push the pending files to the office where appropriate staff are supposed to handle the files with maximum attention paid to the details.
Files are hidden and times shredded by the officers in government registry offices especially when it comes to matters pertaining to leave pay, study leave, vacation leave and retirement package. Bribing the fellows tasked with the onerous task of forwarding files to the concerned officers with authority to sign the documents has become a normal and formal feature in public service just as paying money to traffic officers on weekly basis so that the ones with defective cars and without driving licences are given some form of immunity from impounding the vehicles. There are times when one would wonder as to whether the Ant-corruption Commission (ACC) is alive to the truths that such types of open corruption are growing in the public service. The servant-first leader in the public office relegates personal interests and upholds the interests of the common people barely able to offer bribes to some senior officer for some files to move to an appropriate office. He/she is a natural servant of the people and delights in making people happier than himself/herself contrary to the leader first who does not bother about the needs of the subordinates and the general populace they ought to serve with diligence and practical competence and jet-speed efficiency.
Mboya (1968:164) asserts that a civil servant must be a loyal and disciplined servant. Hard work must be the Hallmark of one’s personality, Honesty must be the milestone of one’s daily character running without ceasing. The civil servant must promote and implement government policy regardless of how the party steering wheels of statecraft perceive them. The nation other than the political party in the echelons of power should take precedence. The nature of the party in power, even with swarms of hoodlums with Gestapo-like brutality posing as cadres, should not scare professional civil servants. Cadres do not run the government system. It is a professional non-political system who can run a vibrant and radiant civil service. The civil service must serve all the people regardless of their wealth, poverty, height, weight, religion, creed, race or ethnicity.
The civil service required in Zambia is one blind to the colours of the attires of the party in power and parties in opposition. Over the years we have had the parties in power unleashing acts of brutality, savagery, banditry and murder with police officers watching fearfully as they would face instant transfer or dismissal when disobeying “ABA MU CIPANI”. Opposition to some members of the political party in power entails enmity. The re-introduction of multipartyism in the country in December 1990 and the election of the party which championed it the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) brought new areas of tension as the MMD under President Frederick Chiluba in power had not done enough to promote dissenting views but manifested lack of tolerance of opposition parties which had strong leaders and did its best to divide them by cajole and deceit, carrot and stick persuasion and coercion which ultimately brought one party tyranny in a democratic country. Even voices of dissent within the radical members of the party such as Levy Mwanawasa, Elias Chipimo Snr, Akashambatwa Mbikusita-Lewanika, Arthur Wina, Humphrey Mulemba, Benjamin Mwila, Baldwin Nkumbula, Edith Nawakwi, Mbita Chitala, among many others were throttled and gagged. Weaker parties had to thrive as they had to be sponsored by the ruling party like satellite state agents of the most powerful man at the helm of the MMD. It is very unfortunate that the ruling party and the opposition parties cannot interact and share views on how the economy of the country can be developed by all Zambians. We only see alliance parties on either the side of the two implacable divides sharing platform. It is now practically impossible for the ruling party and its allies to meet the opposition parties in alliance to debate national issues as family. The two sides behave like two hostile soldiers ready to shoot each other. With a non-partisan civil service this can be a great possibility.
A professional civil service insulated against party politics can bring all the belligerent forces hateful of each other together with the support of non-partisan leaders of the clergy. A country can run with a professional and non-political civil service system. Politicians come to government and exit when the electorate gets fed up with them but the civil service remains. Firing senior civil servants and supplanting them with hardline party cadres and professional sycophants every after change of government has turned out to be a perpetual throwback to progress. The country is just too advanced in age at 60 to continue practicing politics of vindictiveness and obliteration. Such politics have stagnated and degraded Zambia as a great nation. The blame must be apportioned upon the shoulders of the politicians esteeming their cadres much more than a competent and practical civil service.
Some clinical officers at health posts have suffered the agony of forced transfers to remote places even upon being falsely reported by hateful cadres in need of cash that they were agents of a party in opposition.
The civil servant -servant-first leader – must be alive and alert to the fact that all Zambians must be served without compromise. Many politicians are not as learned as the civil servants. Zambia has had career civil servants who took professionalism to politics in government as ministers.
John Mwanakatwe, Elias Chipimo, and Kalombo Mwansa added value to government during their days as ministers working as professionals and insulated against politics of vengeance and malice. The professional civil servant not obsessed with politics of manipulation and domination are there to give sound advice to the political leaders at the wheel of statecraft. A civil servant must be dynamic and very conscious of the inevitability and imperatives of politics and economics of transformation in the country. The intellect of the servant -first should persuade and prevail on the politicians not to fall prey to abuse of office where they can have the audacity to dip their fingers in public coffers. Embezzlement of public funds is commonplace in the country and the buck must stop at the partisan senior servant who out of attempting to get undue favour from the political heavyweights in the echelons of power renders oneself to becoming a habitual thief. Thefts by public servant are rampant and are happening daily .
Neutrality of the civil service does not imply a closed civil service impermeable to new ideas, information and knowledge in consonant with new economic trends. Civil service neutrality is a gross misnomer. Every civil servant has a big part to play in tailoring oneself to serve the interests of the party in power. Policies and programmes of the party in power must be implemented to the letter unless they are tailored to divide the country other than unite it by allowing the civil servants to play politics of criminality and outright deceit of inferiority. Neutrality in the function of the civil service endeavours to throw more light on professionalism other than biased party militancy and suppression of the people who may be seen to be averse of the political party in power. The nation we call Zambia does not need divisive and hateful people. We must have a civil service which cannot pander to the dictates of tribal zealots and religious fundamentalists reminiscent of Boko Haram, Al Shabab and Al Qaeda. Our nation’s foundation was built on unity by founding fathers who saw no sense in politics of tribalism and hate speech. A professional civil service is what will consolidate the foundation of national unity which has made Zambia a unique country in the whole region of Southern Africa and Africa as a whole. A professional civil service can run government without worries ingrained in the citizenry even when there is a possibility of a run-off in national elections.
Trust is essential to all organisations and institutions. Bennis (2003:82) mentions that the main determinant of trust is reliability. A civil service must command the respect and trust of the citizens. This does not come at the drop of a hat or flick of the pain. The government must always ensure that people appointed to civil service portfolios are those insulated against partisan petty politics and tribal inclinations. It is the role of the civil service to create an atmosphere of confidence and trust in the government among the citizens of Zambia. An inefficient civil service propels a nation to a real nowhere land as it is led by real nowhere men and women making their real nowhere plans for nobody. It is as irrelevant as old currency stricken out of circulation.
The party cadres are ever invading the offices of civil servants especially those who belong to the ruling party. Over the years, when there are national and international events, unruly party cadres of the ruling party want their weight to be felt and gave instructions to the career civil servants on who to invite to the events and those to be kept out of the way to the venue for the events. Excess power the cadres give to themselves are largely ultra vires and result in total chaos. I bore witness to ruthless behaviour of party cadres who had the audacity to brutalise members of an opposition party in full view of the senior party leaders who stood by like powerless sicklings afraid of punches from the thickset cadres with the title of “commander”. Some opposition party leaders had been stripped of their clothes and whipped like slaves in chains by merciless cadres with blood oozing out turning their white vests into red. Police officers stood by and could not arrest the passionate law breakers as they feared retribution and reprisals from the army of merciless cadres with Gestapo inspiration driven by party leaders.
Quality service delivery can only come from a non-partisan civil service orientated to serve all citizens. Development should not be taken discriminately to the strongholds of the ruling party. President Frederick Chiluba at times did not want to take development to UNIP strongholds in Eastern Province. His successor Levy Mwanawasa did the contrary. He wanted every Zambian to be a partaker of the national cake for development. President Michael Sata did his best to serve all Zambians. ECL had a semblance of what Sata stood for to a smaller extent. The incumbent president HH must have learnt from his six predecessors all out of this world. Balancing scales of economic development for all Zambians regardless of their political party affiliation is what we want in Zambia. Zambia is for all the 73 ethnic groups and need no political leaders who despise people from other regions which are not theirs.
Quality delivery of development by the civil service calls for dedication, sacrifice, total dedication to patriotic love, and sacrificial hard work. This is what would energise and guarantee high-performing systems.
Let the civil service build a better Zambia devoid of brutalisation of innocent people and demeaning some ethnic groups. All people must be partakers of our national natural resources and priority must be given to them when there is a clash of interests between the swarms of foreigners siphoning our minerals and timber and our people. Putting Zambians first in wealth creation and distribution is what will bring a Zambia far better than the one we have now.
Author is Luanshya based Historian and Academician