Windhoek
Civil servants, including permanent secretaries, will from now on need special permission to do business outside the public service, Prime Minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila announced yesterday.
The PM made the announcement yesterday in the National Assembly when she updated lawmakers on the progress made on the framework for compulsory declaration of interests and remunerative work outside public service employment.
Many public servants are believed to conduct unsanctioned business transactions, some in conflict with their official roles.
Some have over the years been accused leaking inside information, especially when it comes to awarding state contracts to their proxies and covert business partners.
The PM said as from the end of this month every civil servant occupying a position lower than a permanent secretary will have to seek permission from the permanent secretary in that specific ministry to do remunerative work beyond the scope of their employment.
Kuugongelwa-Amadhila also announced that all permanent secretaries had until yesterday to declare their interests. She told New Era after yesterday’s sitting that she could not confirm whether all permanent secretaries have declared their interests or not.
“Since today is the deadline, we have to allow the office some days to take stock of the submission, evaluate them and then engage the people involved,” she said.
She said there are criteria against which declarations will be evaluated which will focus on possible conflict of interest.
“The purpose of this policy is to regulate this matter in an open and transparent manner in order to protect the interests of the public service by ensuring that staff members and members of the services places the whole time at the disposal of government,” said the Prime Minister. It is also aimed at preventing unfair competition between staff members and persons in the private sector, she said.
The Premier said government is concerned about the increased number of public servants involved in work outside the public service. Following the commissioning of a study to investigate how the monitoring system can be improved, the Prime Minister made public the conclusions drawn from the study.
The conclusions include, among others, need for industry-specific policy and awareness, sound system for monitoring and evaluation and the validity of permission. Permission granted to civil servants to perform remunerative work outside employment may not exceed a year, unlike in the past when it was infinite.
The Prime Minister, however, indicated that permission is renewable.
She said a unit will be created in the Office of the Prime Minister to effectively manage the declaration process, but for now it will be handled by staff members from the Public Service Commission Secretariat and Public Service Management departments.
Meanwhile, government last week announced that it has opted not to renew Teckla Lameck’s contract as a member of the Public Service Commission board after her term expired last October and replaced her with acting permanent secretary of the Ministry of Land Reform Nashilongo Shivute.
It is not known whether government’s decision not to renew her contract was because of the corruption case she faces in which she and her business partners stand accused of having corruptly benefitted from a tender to provide X-ray scanners worth over N$40 million to the Ministry of Finance.
With civil servants set to declare their interests by month end, all eyes will now be turned to the country’s lawmakers many of whom have since become law breakers for defying the asset declaration policy since 2009.