Vice President Michael Usi has challenged public institutions to refrain from political interference when rendering their services to the public.
Usi made the call on Monday after touring the Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services and the Road Traffic Directorate in Blantyre.
He stressed that political interference in the operations of public institutions is retrogressive and must not be allowed to thrive.
“Politicians from different political parties should not be allowed to interference in the affairs of these departments because that cripples service delivery,” said Usi.
Principal Secretary of the Ministry of Homeland Security, Steven Kayuni emphasized that the Immigration and Citizenship Services Department would resolve issues that have been affecting them, especially in terms of passport issuance, in two months.
The Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services has been grappling with several challenges since March this year when it announced that unknown people had hacked their system.
Governance expert, Dr George Chaima has since praised Usi on his recent tours of government departments and institutions saying this would help in bringing sanity in as far as operations of public institutions are concerned.
“Some people may look at these operations as a waste of time and resources. However, frankly speaking, many civil servants working for the government departments and parastatals are critical in terms of advancing performance and service delivery of government,” said Chaima.
He noted that the visits by Usi are a wake-up call to public officers to improve their labour ethics and to honour job demands.
Chaima has further encouraged the vice president never to relent but to keep on touring public offices without prior notice if civil servants’ performance is to improve.
“If the civil servants don’t improve, there should be room for them to be disciplined or dismissed so that the taxpayer’s money must go where service is delivered,” he explained.
