By Kondwani Magombo
Mangochi, April 27, Mana: Vice President, Dr. Saulos Chilima has applauded eastern region districts councils on the implementation of public services reforms.
He said local authorities in the east have shown a lot of commitment and progress singling out Balaka as best implementer on public service reforms.
Chilima made the remarks in Mangochi Monday where he met officials from four councils namely, Balaka, Machinga, Mangochi district and Mangochi Municipal.
The Vice President singled out Balaka as one the council that was way above the rest in the implementation of the public sector reforms.
“The fact that Balaka District Council comes out as one of the councils that is doing it right and their presentation was very impressive,” Chilima said, adding, “The wish is that whatever we are seeing on paper is the true representation of what’s on the ground.”
The Vice President noted that Mangochi councils have been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic especially in the tourism sector which has seen a decline in visitors and that this in turn has affected revenue collection.
He said what matters most at this stage was the fact that the councils are doing something to implement the agreed reforms.
“There’s interesting results,” Chilima said, citing that, “Two things, we would like to see first are these: are the councils making progress? Is there commitment to run with the agenda? And the answer to both questions is in affirmative that we have seen a lot of commitment and progress.”
Balaka District Council Chairperson, Michael Chauluka described the Chilima’s recognition of the council’s good work as an energizer and pledged to work even harder to remain on top.
He attributed Balaka’s success to the spirit of team work that was instilled in all the directors of the sectors of his council and their effort to seeing things done the right way.
“Meeting the Vice President has been very inspiring especially taking into account what he said about our presentation,” Chauluka said, in an interview with Malawi News Agency (Mana).
“The Vice President has promised to find time to visit us to match what’s on paper and what’s on the ground and we are very ready for that,” he added
Chauluka who is Balaka West Mulunguzi Ward Councillor said the best results are attributed to his regular meetings with all the directors and the secretariat to scrutinize progress on developments and discussions on challenges and way forward.
Balaka District Council came top with the highest score of 67 percent in the Local Authority Performance Assessment (LAPA) report released recently.
Chilima plans to continue meeting all councils in the country for the next two to three weeks to appreciate progress on the reforms implementation.
