MINISTER of State in the President’s Office, Public Service Management and Good Governance Mr George Simbachawene has outlined key concerns that are tarnishing the image of public service, among them sex corruption.
The minister raised the issues in Dodoma on Thursday, when officiating the working meeting of the ministry officials, Integrity Supervisory Institutions and Supervisory Authorities of the Professional Integrity.
According to the minister, some presidential appointees, including ministers and heads of public institutions were not ready to work with some persons that they meet in their new duty areas, instead, they were proposing the names of their choice.
Other pertinent issues that dwarf performance in the public service, he said, were bribery, favouritism, poor discipline and failure to fulfil responsibilities by some public servants.
Mr Simbachawene said that it was a shame in the eyes of the public to demand sex corruption in the course of administering justice to public servants who have all the criteria for getting employed.
“I want to see professionals honouring ethics guiding their work, he insisted. Recently, there is a certain lady who requested for job and we employed her because she had all requisite qualifications and immediately after the interview we placed her to one of the ministries where she was asked to offer 5m/- in bribe or sex corruption, failure to which she would lose her job,” he said.
To get rid of that, Mr Simbachawene directed, it was high time employers remained firm in supervising ethics at work places and that ethics stakeholders should equally intensify collaboration with the President’s Office, Public Service Management and Good Governance, as well as disciplinary authorities so as to deal with those whose integrity is questionable.
Mr Simbachawene further warned some presidential appointees who immediately after reporting at their new duty stations were frustrating workers by deciding who they want to work with and who they don’t.
“Today when some appointees, mainly heads of public entities and ministers report at their duty stations, the first thing they do is to restructure workers and indeed this is failure,” he noted.
According to Mr Simbachawene, now there are several employees lined up in the office of the Permanent Secretary responsible for Public Service and Good Governance who had been disowned by their employers due to such a habit.
However, the minister was quick to point out that his office had decided that from now on, there is no any public servant who will be transferred simply because they are not wanted by the new boss.
Regarding the employment, the minister said that despite some complaints, the current system was the best, because it was uniting the nation, unlike in the previous systems where people were scrambling to be transferred to institutions that were paying huge salaries.
