Civil Servants urge to embrace National School of Government

North Western Province Permanent Secretary Willies Mangimela says government wants to change the negative perception of the civil service by the public through the work of the National School of Government (NSG) draft bill of 2020.

Speaking in a speech read on his behalf by Deputy Permanent Secretary Emmanuel Chihili when a team from the office of the Vice President held a consultative Stakeholders meeting in Solwezi today on the National School of Government (NSG) Layman’s draft bill 2020, Mr Mangimela called all civil servants to embrace the work of the bill for improved performance in the Public service.

Mr. Mangimela revealed that in 2021 and beyond, the National School of Government will have to consider subjecting public service workers to examinations having gone through the induction and in-service training which will act as a prerequisite for vertical progression among civil servants.

He said Government is committed to ensuring that it has a public service that is appreciated by the general public by efficiently and effectively providing various services.

Mr. Mangimela said it is expected that the National School of Government will address the factors that are affecting the public service delivery such as poor work culture, inefficiency, lack of integrity, non-appreciation of the practices and procedures in government.

“I am excited to have this opportunity to offer comments on the National School of Government (NSG) which is a vehicle of Public Service transformation through improved professionalism, efficiency and integrity,” he said.

Mr. Mangimela said in 1962 government created National Institute of Public Administration (NIPA) to function as a civil service training college but later in 1998 an act of parliament was passed that led to the commercialization of the institute which resulted into NIPA concentrated on the academic courses with reduced attention to the matters of civil service induction.

He said after observing that NIPA had moved from its original mandate of training civil servants,government established the National School of Government (NSG) through Gazette Notice No. 836 of 2016, as a Statutory Body under the office of the Vice President.

” Having observed that the National Institute of Public Administration NIPA had moved from the Original Mandate, and that meant there was a gap in terms of induction of Public Service workers,” he added.

He said the NSG will transform the public service through improved professionalism, efficiency and integrity.

Mr. Mangimela said National School of Government has already developed the curriculum to facilitate the commencement and rolling-out of the public service induction in 2021.

He said the office of the Vice President intend to push the bill in parliament in the first quarter of 2021 with the hope that the debate can be completed and the bill enacted by may 2021.

“These consultations are very important as they will give an opportunity to critic the layman’s bill which will greatly help to refine the documents when drafters of the bill are contracted,” he said.

He said the induction is supposed to be done in all ministries, provinces and other spending agencies of government.

Speaking during the same function, National School of Government Director Arthur Choobe said the purpose of their visit was to get views from the stakeholders on National School of Government.

Mr. Choobe said it is envisaged that by 12 December this year all the consultations will be done.

Mr. Choobe said the goal of the National School of Government is to improve the performance of the public service to deliver quality service to the expectations of the Zambian People.