Two officers at M’mbelwa District Council who were recently posted to new working places are defying orders to relocate to their new duty stations.
According to the documents that Malawi24 has in hand, Chigonjetso Chiromo, the Youth Officer Grade 1/M7 of the council was sent to Kasungu on the same position, on September 20, 2023, but he has not yet reported.
Our investigation has found that by the time posting instructions came, Chiromo was appointed as a member of the Appointments and Disciplinary Committee (ADC), which is also responsible for recruitment of lower grades and dispensary issues. Some people are suggesting that the officer is failing to move due to the committee member position he was appointed to.
According to the posting instructions of Land Sector Officers dated 24 November 2023, Lucy Kankuwe, a Physical Planning Technician (Grade K), has been posted to Nkhata-Bay but up to date, she has not reported.
The Local Government Commission Service has already communicated to M’mbelwa District Council to inform the two officers to report to their new working place and honour the posting instructions as others have done.
Meanwhile, Social and good governance expert, Francis Liyati has wondered why the officers are refusing to honor posting instructions.
“Unfortunately, the behaviour of officers not honouring the postings is growing in the country, my advice is that those officers should report to their respective places”, said Liyati.
Public Relations Officer for M’mbelwa District Council Joel Phiri in an interview said as a Council they will meet the officers to know the reasons for their delays in reporting to their respective new deployed officers.
“It’s not like once an officer receives the transfer letter then they should leave promptly. There are some issues that could stand in their way like transport arrangements by the council to take them to their new places,” said Phiri.
Phiri further said that in some cases, delays are caused by administrative issues that require sorting out when postings are issued from the top or centre .
“For instance, if an instruction removes a person from a certain post without replacement, you need to sort out that anomaly before a person leaves or it’s a question of getting a particular assignment completed before a person leaves,” said Phiri.
This is not the first time that officers at M’mbelwa district council have rebuffed transfer instructions to other Councils, creating speculations that maybe they have done something fishy that they are afraid could come out if they leave.
Ephraim Mkali Banda-Mzimba
