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ZIMBABWE’s revised economic growth projection of 1.5 percent means that the country needs to bite the bullet and take tough decisions to accelerate its economic turnaround. The country remains on track to meet its targets under the International Monetary Fund Staff Monitored Programme.

It met all the targets set for the first review and these were done under difficult economic conditions. Gold output has increased by 29 percent to 6.8 tonnes thanks to higher deliveries by small-scale miners and prospects for a good agricultural season are bright as preparations are in full swing.

The government has already taken the lead in instituting far-reaching reforms that are meant to breathe life into the economy. President Robert Mugabe’s 10-point plan presented during his State of the Nation address last week gave political direction to individual ministries which should now convert the points into programmes of action executable within set timeframes.

The plan, which dovetails with the four legs of ZimAsset — government’s much-vaunted economic blueprint — cuts across all economic enablers. The government is also reorganising the civil service based on the findings of an audit which unearthed a lot of irregularities. The audit report noted that idle workers are largely responsible for the government’s bloated wage bill and some departments would have to be realigned to streamline costs.

It also emerged that many civil servants lack job descriptions and are hardly contributing to public administration and the mix of Statecraft. Some have become redundant and others duplicate duties. Non-technical ministries were found to have a lot of idle manpower. The government has indicated its intention to reduce the ratio of the civil service wage bill to revenue from 80 to 40 percent.

At present, the State salary bill gobbles 83 percent of revenue, depriving authorities of fiscal space to embark on capital projects for socio-economic development. We are glad that some ministries like Information, Media and broadcasting Services, which fall within the third point of the 10-point plan, have hit the ground running and are already implementing measures meant to reduce costs and improve operational efficiency in the various departments under their purview.

According to the ministry’s permanent secretary George Charamba, they are dealing with infrastructure development, particularly in the key energy, water, transport and ICT sub-sectors. He outlined how they were implementing the ICT, especially with respect to broadcasting services. “We have taken a two-way approach and the first one deals with the last leg of Zim-Asset which is re-organisation of structures,” he told our Harare Bureau at the weekend.

“Secondly we are dealing with infrastructure development. In respect of re-organisation, all our departments including the ministry itself, are undergoing restructuring. The ministry has had to merge two key departments which are urban communications and media services department.

“The two departments have now been collapsed into one for effectiveness and in line with the need to cut wage costs. “It also has to do with strengthening the content department organisationally in anticipation of digitisation. In terms of institutions under it (ministry), you have seen the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation which has lost half of its workforce and we have proposed a new structure which is cost effective, efficient and consistent with the workflow in a digital age.”

They were also drafting corporate rules for the national broadcaster which would focus on issues such as salary structures for the top management among other issues.

“We want to make sure that the top is not heavy both numerically and financially,” he said.

“Zimpapers has laid off 107 employees but as a ministry we are still not happy because the savings realised from the retrenchment exercise do not match the number that has gone which means that the cost of the structure lays elsewhere.

“The top structure has to be revisited and as the permanent secretary I am in the process of making recommendations. In this case Government is acting strictly as an investor in Zimpapers via Mass Media Trust.

“When all this is told, the idea is to make sure that the efficiency arising from the new ICT infrastructure are matched administratively with efficient working institutions.” We applaud the ministry for being proactive and leading the way in policy implementation. We expect other line ministries to quickly locate their point within the broad sense of ZimAsset and start implementing measures to streamline their operations and improve efficiency. A well functioning bureaucracy is crucial for the successful implementation of government programmes and the ongoing reforms in the civil service, painful as they maybe, are necessary to improve the overall performance of the government. A leaner, more efficient civil service will ensure that the government channels energy and resources to critical sectors of the economy. We therefore support the reforms fully and hope that the government will move swiftly to weed out ghost workers, non-performers and other deadwood within it’s workforce as per recommendations of the audit report.