Dept to clear delays in naming of provincial administrators

THE Department of Personnel Management is in the process of ironing out issues in relation to delays in appointing provincial administrators after numerous complaints were raised in Parliament.
Minister for Public Service Elias Kapavore said the department had a few discussions with the Minister for Justice and Attorney-General Davis Steven and they would sort out the delay.
He said positions for Manus, Chimbu and Kavieng were advertised in the media on Wednesday.
Kapavore said delays were caused by some processes not being followed properly.
“The State makes sure that advertisement of positions must be done, the processes that lead to the shortlist are done properly and then goes to NEC and the positions are advertised,” he said.
“From the 20 provincial administrators that we have, 12 have been appointed substantively, four had their contracts of appointment cleared and eight are awaiting legal clearance.”
Kapavore said according to the Public Management Act, Section 20, contract clearance could be done within 14 days if all these processes were done properly.
“On this regard, we have 22 departmental heads and 16 have been properly appointed and eight are acting.
“The provincial governors and portfolio ministers, once your provincial administrators are appointed, you must have key performance (KPIs) and key result areas (KRAs) indicators in place so that they track their performances.”
Kapavore said in the past, the department did not follow the requirements according to the law that says that March 31 every year, summary of performance for all the PAs and their departmental heads should be presented to the Department of Personnel Management secretary.
Kapavore said last year only five departmental heads presented their reports and improvement was needed.