Increased ministries will streamline delivery – Mwanza
By Charles Musonda
THE Zambia Civil Liberties Union (ZCLU) has welcomed President Hakainde Hichilema’s proposal to increase Cabinet from 24 to 30 ministries.
In an interview with The Mast yesterday, ZCLU executive director Isaac Mwanza said the Constitution allowed Hichilema to appoint a maximum of 30 members of Parliament to serve as ministers.
“If he has decided to fill in all as required by the Constitution, there are resources for such a huge number of ministers, we don’t think that will be a problem,” he said.
“It’s something that will help streamline duties and also concentrate manpower in the ministries on targeted issues. We don’t know how effective that will be, but we know, for instance, if we are going to talk about electricity, which includes generation, distribution and supply, we are going to have people who are dedicated to that,” Mwanza said.
He said if the country wanted to save costs, ministries should have merged.
“In terms of cost saving, it would have been prudent to ensure that some ministries are merged,” he said.
Mwanza said petroleum and energy could still fall under the ministry of energy as it was before.
“But if, in his wisdom, he wants to run the five-year mandate he has been given by the Zambian people, we hope that the Zambian people are going to feel the impact of having new ministries and people who are going to be appointed will take their duties seriously to ensure adequate service delivery and I think that is what is important,” he said.
