Government says it will start to closely monitor the Public Works Programs (PWP) as well as the Local Development Fund (LDF) to ensure efficiency.
According to the minister of local government Kondwani Nankhumwa, this has been done as one way of embracing the reforms that have been instituted in various departments in government.
He said they recruited project officers in all the 35 councils of the country who will help to make sure that LDF is being efficiently managed.
“We sought the need to deploy project officers in all the 35 councils of the country as we know that for a long time the LDF has been handled in a way that it was hard to understand how funds were managed,” said Nankhumwa.
He added that the ministry saw it wise to recruit project officers who will be on the ground to make sure that funds are well managed and to reduce inefficiency of development projects.
Nankhumwa further said that there was a high vacancy rate at various councils across the country so they had to recruit special people to monitor LDF in order to achieve efficiency.
According to the minister, the project officers will make sure that corruption is reduced and that development is enhanced in various councils.
He also said that ghost workers will also be reduced as the project officers will monitor all those issues in the end ensure efficiency in all the projects under LDF so that they are done in a transparent manner.
Good idea, so long as the project officers themselves don’t become the centres of the corruption that is associated with Local Development Fund (LDF) and the Public Works programme.