President Lazarus Chakwera has called upon Principal Secretaries (PSs) for all government ministries to align their work with what needs to be done to expedite the fixing of systems that have remained broken for more than a couple of decades.

Chakwera made the call on Tuesday at Kamuzu Palace during an interface meeting he had with the principal secretaries from government ministries, departments and agencies.

The Malawi leader said the controlling officers are a critical human resource in the attainment and delivery of the country’s long term priorities hence they need to be fully committed.

In his words, President Lazarus Chakwera cautioned principal secretaries that he will not entertain any attitudes or behaviors from the civil service that are designed to make government fail.

He said: “You are the ones who control the civil service, and the fact that the civil service is broken and in urgent need of fixing means that the task of fixing it rests on you. My task is to give you direction on what you must focus on and to engage in continuous evaluation of whether you have what it takes to fix a government system as broken as ours is.”

The Malawi leader said as controlling officers, Principal Secretaries are a critical human resource in the delivery of the country’s long term priorities, as outlined in the Malawi Vision 2063, the 1st 10-Year Implementation Plan (MIP1) and the three-year Socio-Economic Recovery Plan.

Chakwera went to say that a better Malawi begins with an efficient, disciplined and corrupt-free civil service as such he has implored the principal secretaries to put adequate effort towards this task without fail under the supervision of the Secretary to the President and Cabinet (SPC).

He said they have devised a plan to have monthly meetings between the Principal Secretaries and the SPC on top of the proposed quarterly performance appraisals.