Warning issued to dept heads

By HELEN TARAWA
DEPARTMENT heads who do not perform will be terminated, Public Service Minister Elias Kapavore says.
Speaking at the launching of the department’s corporate plan (2019-22) Kapavore said anyone who performs stay.
“I don’t fear actually signing off someone who is terminated because of lack of performance,” he said.
“It is a requirement under the Public Service Management Act (PSMA) for departmental heads to report on the attainments for the past year.
“Failure on the departmental heads to do this is a non-performance on their part and we will not tolerate such in the future.
“It is clearly stated in PSMA Section 25 that non-performance warrants termination from the public service.”
Kapavore said key performance indicators must be reported because that is the only way to determine if public servants were doing their jobs.
He said each departmental head is required to report their departments KPIs by March 31 every year so the minister responsible can present the report to the National Executive Council (NEC).
“Many of our government departments are not complying with the Public Service Management Act,” he said.
“Not many departments were fully reporting on their performances. PSMA Section 26 talks about the Performance Management System.”
Kapavore said departmental heads under contracts must also report their performances as it is a performance based contract and position.
He said they must be tied to the key performance indicators (KPIs) and key result areas (KRAs) specified in the corporate plan.
“Every time someone is appointed, they must be tied to their KPIs specified in their corporate plans,” he said.
“It doesn’t only stop at the national level, it goes down to the provincial administrations who are assessed by the Provincial
Executive Council and the Governor the chief executive officers at the district level are assessed by the member of Parliament and further down to the LLG manager who are assessed by the presidents.
“If we to get everyone in the system of accountability process and get their reports on attainments we can change the public service in the future.
“We need to put everyone through the accountability process. KPI and KRAs are important to assess our performance.”