President Sata once complained about civil servants' inertia to support his Govt vision & threatened to FIRE all civil servants. President Hakainde recently raised similar complaints. What's going on?
Writing for the World Bank, Meyer-Sahling, Schuster & Mikkelsen whilst scratching their heads argued that getting basics right in managing civil servants in our countries is key to build an effective civil service. The advise:
i) Prioritizing professional merit over political and personal considerations in civil service management decisions
ii) Ensuring that performance management systems genuinely promote performance-oriented civil service management decisions, and
iii) Paying enough to retain more motivated civil servants and prevent large-scale turnover of high performers.
In their final analysis, they recommended that for policy-makers, this implies a need to engage in systematic evidence gathering on existing civil service management practices and civil servant attitudes, using tools such as civil service surveys, before designing reforms to shape the attitudes of civil servants for the better.
Given the large variation in management practices and civil servant attitudes, reforms are likely to be more effective where they are targeted to individual institutions – rather than the public sector as a whole.
Whoever aspires for political office, they should know that traits of the civil service. Mainly, the civil service is littered with spin doctors who come in diff shapes, sizes & styles. Whenever a new govt, or govt official is appointed, they get in full gear studying them & find ways to make them fall into several spin doctoral traps. Remember, govts come & go. Civil servants remain. They've years of experience in destroying govts.
By Govt, I mean political govts e.g. MMD, UNIP, EFF, UPND, LP, SP, etc. Each political party that wins an election mainly appoints a new: Minister & PS. Others are civil servants.
1) MANIPULATORS- these civil servants create chaotic scenarios for their benefit. They create a situation where controlling officers feel like without doing things as they found them when they assumed office, they risk performing poorly on their contract. Their manipulative moves include tempering with systems/processes eg work for 3 days can take 30 days. They'll come for a meeting few minutes before lunch, or come 2 hours late & pretend to have one thousand things pending at the office so that they leave early.
In the process, momentum is lost by other stakeholders towards a well intended policy that requires quick attention. These manipulators use these tactics to frustrate others or make them lose hope in a well intended policy or GRZ strategy.
2) SNARE PLANTERS- these are mostly from HR, procurement & accounts, etc. They study appointed heads, know their weaknesses & lay snares for them everywhere they go e.g.along procurement routes, recruitment roads, payment, etc. Ultimately, a controlling officer is endangered. The snares could be hidden in contracts (inflated or dubious) , payments (wrong payments can be cooked up), job awarding etc. Their snares would include your friend suppliers, girlfriends, job awarding (e.g. giving your relatives, friends or friends' children).
3) CONTRACT SELLERS- Govt is among big buyers of goods & services. Civil servants are behaind wheels of govt in procuring these goods & services. They are movers & shakers of GRZ programs, projects & activities. No GRZ should underestimate these public officers. They destroy. If they want, they'll tilt tender ToRs & make heads of the govt institutions sign the contract to favour their buddies. If it means making others uncompetitive, they'll do it. Govt officials mainly do ceremonial works, the actual drivers of things are civil servants.
You can supply to govt nicely, meeting all requirements, delivery on time, but if you piss them off; you won't see your money. A civil servant in procurement can hide your documents. Or one in accounts will pull out few documents so that you're not paid. They know where to touch
A govt official,who like throwing muscles "I am the boss, pay this person, who is delaying the payment etc" can find him/herself in trouble as key documents may be missing & s/he will sign hurriedly because "I am the boss" when a lot is wrong with the documents. Watch the pace.
4) INDUCERS- These induce both suppliers & controlling officers. A supplier will be induced into paying for quick processing of the payment e.g. our boss needs a "facilitation fee". The controlling officer may not know what's going on or will only know when it's too late.
The inducers can get the "facilitation fee", eat it & leave the govt official's name in a messy over money s/he didn't see. They'll simply tell the supplier "the money shouldn't leave a trail, give us in cash". They meet at joint, get their cut & chew it on behalf a GRZ official. The supplier will complain about GRZ making the cost of doing business high via these cuts, yet it's the making of civil servants. Some controlling officers being prosecuted didn't benefit from the cuts, civil servants used their names to do the deed & got away with it.
5) SCHOLARS: Don't mistake them to academic scholars. They are simply spin-doctors who make heads of institutions specimen. They will study them to know where to 'punch' to make them fall. They use diff tactics to get around these appointed officials.
They'll assess whether GRZ officials (PS & Minister) are for: i) girls ii) money hungry iii) praise lovers iv) contract chasers, etc & pass on the info to snare planters who will litter corridors of the GRZ institution with diff snares to trap the GRZ officials. If the GRZ official is for girls, they'll find one within the Ministry or outside who will come as a supplier of sth. Before long, you're done. They'll keep every evidence in readiness to destroy you. Sometimes it can't be your girlfriend, it will be colleagues.
6) PRAISE SINGERS: these are specialized in fooling GRZ officials, esp appointed ones with praises. They're so specialized that you won't figure out what they're up to. They'll knee down when talking to you, they'll sing exaggerated praises & sublime lies to make you feel nice. In your feeling nice state, they're doing their spinning doctoral shenanigans. Once they see that you love praises, they'll give you full dosages of them daily. These are meant to blindfold you, make you feel like the most important, so that you won't be suspicious of them.
As praisers do their job, you'll think they're the good boys/girls around. You will even defend them as results oriented, push for their promotions, etc. Before you know it, you're done, messed up big time.ACC will be knocking at your door & you'll be fired leaving them.
Change mgt is key in actualizing GRZ programs. You can't get rid of the civil servants, they're long term public program implementers. Their institutional memory is a valuable asset to GRZ programs. Influencing change among them can earn GRZ good scores.
ULTIMATELY, Governments will come & go leaving the civil servants.
Leadership attributes that build a desirable workforce in the civil service are critical to any GRZ's success in meeting public needs. Any good GRZ policy/program requires a VIABLE civil service. Steady steps coupled with constructive attributes by GRZ officials rather than punitive approaches could work in building a civil service that walks the GRZ talk. There's no clear cut method I am putting on the table, a mixed method can result in desirable outcomes.
Frustrating the civil service tends to result in disasters, paralysis of systems & destructive footprints. Building teams of civil servants that believe in the GRZ vision may be a win-win situation. Experts in public administration can develop a well refined GRZ strategy.
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