The Malawi Public Service Management Policy (2018-2022)

We finished looking at the Malawi National Public Sector Reforms Policy (2018-2022) as an integral framework required to revolutionize the public sector into one that is fit for purpose, results oriented and high performing to facilitate positive transformation of the economy and modernization of the country.

Today, we proceed to look at the Malawi Public Service Management Policy (2018-2022) which was passed by Cabinet together with the Reforms Policy on 28 February 2018 as another major driver of the Reforms Agenda which was launched by His Excellency President Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika on 11 February 2015. Since the Constitution of the Republic of Malawi and the Public Service Act were instituted in 1994, there has been no overarching policy to guide Public Service Management in Malawi.

The absence of such an integral framework resulted to among other things, inadequate implementation of policies and programmes; inadequate collaboration among public sector institutions and between the public sector institutions and non-state actors and; poor public sector governance; misallocation and misappropriation of resources in the public service and negative mind-set that undermines the ability of public servants to be fully committed to public service.

The development of the Public Sector Management Policy was therefore, imperative in view of its ability to address weaknesses and contradictions in policies that guide the operations of the public service; to address performance challenges in the public service and; the need to reposition the public service so that it can be a useful vehicle for the realization of the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS) III outcomes.

Linkage to Existing Policies
The Policy provides a coherent and comprehensive overarching framework for guiding, facilitating and pro-moting the effective and efficient implementation of all the reforms in the public sector. Thus, the Public Sector Management Policy was crafted so that it links policies that are already in place to help govern the daily business of the Public Sector.

Some of the existent policies linked to the new Malawi Public Service Management Policy include: the Constitution of the Republic of Malawi of 1994, Vision 2020, Malawi Growth and Development Strategy III of 2017, Public Service Act of 1994, Public Audit Act of 2003, Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets Act of 2017, Public Audit Act (2003), Corrupt Practices Act (2004), Local Government Act (1998), Decentralisation Policy, National Gender Policy, Malawi Gender Equality Act, Malawi National HIV and AIDS Policy, Employment Act, Labour Relations Act, Malawi Growth and Development Strategy, Sustain-able Development Goals and African Union Agenda 2063.

Priority Areas
Like the Reforms Policy, the Malawi Public Service Management Policy has priority areas and strategies spelled out to help foster the policy’s overall goal which is to provide a framework for the effective management of the Public Service so that it becomes, “a results oriented and high performing public service by 2022 that facilitates positive transformation of the economy and the country’s modernization” through facilitating achievement of the MGDS III outcomes and the long term national vision aspirations.

The priority areas which are eight (8) in total are: (a) creating a shared understanding of the vision and responsibilities of the Public Service, (b) alignment of the Public Service to the national development agenda and service delivery imperative, (c) development of an enabling institutional, policy and legislative framework for Public Service management; (d) institutionalization of the Public Service guiding principles, values ethos among all public servants in all public service institutions; (e) improving the productivity of Public Servants and performance of the Public Service at all levels; (f) improvement in Public Sector governance, (g) strengthening of the human resource management infrastructure and (h) continuous mod-ernization of the Public Service

The Government of Malawi under the dynamic leadership of His Excellency Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika saw the need to put in place such formal frameworks to help guide Reforms taking place in the Public Sector. Previous reforms by other regimes saw limited and mixed results because of the absence of such integral frameworks.

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