He had asked the two municipal directors what their budget was for road construction in their districts.

Neither could recall on the spot, and a few hours later both officials were sacked. No reason was given.

President Magufuli’s critics say he is becoming increasingly authoritarian. But many have praised the president for his no-nonsense style.

His nickname is “the Bulldozer”.

The president was attending a ceremony in the northern town of Bukoba when the incident happened on Monday.

A 30-second clip of the exchange – all in Swahili – shows him asking Mwantum Kitwana Dau to state how much money had been set aside for a road fund.

When she couldn’t remember, the president scolded her. According to one account, Ms Dau said that she oversees many departments and could not immediately recall the exact budget allocated for road projects.

Mr Magufuli replied: “You can’t talk to me like that.”

Stamping out corruption

The president is known to make spot visits at government offices and berating officials who he believes are not doing their work.

When he came to office two years ago, he promised to stamp out corruption.

In April Mr Magufuli sacked around 10,000 civil servants for having fake education certificates. And since he has been in power Tanzania has removed thousands of so-called ghost workers from its public sector payroll.

–

Source: BBC

The post Magafuli sacks officials after TV scolding appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

According to him, the sector is full and government might even be forced to lay off some workers if the need arises.

Speaking at the 2017 Ghana Economic Forum on Monday Mr. Maafo said “the public sector is full in terms of employment [and] we can’t employ anybody in the public sector.”

[contextly_sidebar id=”Lr4IpZbDiLOrm7iTGBqDU4cJcBYyqJ7t”]Mr. Maafo’s remark seems to be in sharp contrast to declarations by the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) when they were in opposition.

The NPP heavily criticized the then Mahama government for freezing recruitment into the public sector and accusing them of covering up with the 3-year IMF agreement.

Mr. Maafo who conceded that Ghana’s economy is currently in a mess stressed that the public service was“full” and “perhaps we may have to even lay some [workers] off.”

The Senior Minister also said Ghana currently has 20 public and 75 private universities  and that it will be very difficult to employ students from the tertiary institutions saying this situation could be averted “if the private sector grows, if the private sector expands, if the private sector becomes prosperous.”

He further urged industry leaders, and the business community to partner government to establish furnish tertiary institutions with state of the art laboratories to enable them train more researches and engineers for the country adding that “if we do not get our minds set into this direction, we are heading for trouble as a country.”

The two day event which will end on Tuesday, August 8, 2017 is themed: “Building a Ghanaian owned economy, 60 years after independence.”

Mr. Maafo at the event highlighted four areas he said government was keen in developing to boost the Ghanaian economy.

These he said included improving Ghana’s micro economic stability, massive infrastructure development, accelerated industrial development and agriculture transformation.

“These four thematic areas should be able to change the complete face of our economy and I’m sure with your support – captains of industry, the banks, we should be able to accomplish this as a cooperative effort for the sake of Ghana. Let us think about future generations. This generation should lay forever a foundation that will make Ghana a centre of industry in West Africa,” he urged.

The two day event which will end on Tuesday, August 8, 2017 is themed: “Building a Ghanaian owned economy, 60 years after independence.”

Four strategies to boost Ghana’s economy

Mr. Maafo at the event also for the domestication of the Ghanaian economy.

“What are we doing to domesticate that production? Our location even in West Africa is even central; all these should speak to us. Let us resolve to get the economy resolved once and for all. Let us remove this tag of irreversibility on our head that Ghana will do well for some time and later we reverse to the bottom then we climb again to the top that cannot do. Once we set on motion and moving we should make it impossible for any government to reverse that motion. And that is why we are looking at the fiscal responsibility law, so you can’t come and run the deficit anyhow. There should be a law restricting you,” he added.

–

By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin

The post We can’t employ more public sector workers – Osafo Maafo appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show, Prof. Hinson indicated that government’s supposed “rebranding” will not yield the desired results since it is just one of the many other viable options available.

Prof. Hinson was commenting on complaints of poor customer service at some public agencies including the passport office, DVLA and Ghana Post.

[contextly_sidebar id=”zPVWvrAVORwIzvcy1QNuc5lAT3FV5DbY”]“I heard the Minister of Information say they are going to rebrand Ghana, we are going to give Ghana one coherent brand for all public sector institution. Changing logos and colours is just one part of the issue. Every brand has a hard side and a soft side. The soft side issues are not being tackled and that is the problem so most of these public sector leaders don’t have a clue about how to deliver superlative customer experiences. “

The seeming disconnect between President Nana Akuffo Addo’s grand vision and poor services delivered by state agencies has triggered concerns about government’s ability to sanitize the public sector to propel national development.

But Prof. Hinson believes a re-orientation of the public sector will resolve the diverse challenges facing the public sector.

The reorientation, according to him, should begin from the “translation of the big promises into plans, blue print , benchmarks, measurements, parameters.”

“When you develop a service strategy there are instruments that you put in place to deliver and till that happens , we will keep talking and talking and nothing will improve,” he added.

Prof. Hinson added that services delivered by government agencies will not improve until there is a diligent effort to transform customer service delivery.

Ghanaian workers have become clock watchers – Nana Addo 

His suggestion comes days after the President expressed concerns about the poor working attitude by most Ghanaian employees at the May Day Celebration held at the Independence Square in Accra.

He indicated that majority of the Ghanaian workforce after arriving at work , spend most of the time praying and engaging in other unproductive activities.

“We arrive at work late and then spend the first hour in prayer, we become clock watchers and leave in the middle of critical work because it is the official closing time. Everything comes to a stop when it rains and we seem to expect the rest of the world also to stop.”

“We have no respect for the hours set aside for work. We pray, we eat, we visit during working hours. We spend hours chatting on the telephone… we take a week off for every funeral and then we wonder why we are not competitive,” President Akufo-Addo stated.

But his claim was disputed by the Civil and Local Government Staff Association of Ghana (CLOGSAG).

–

By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @EfeAnsah

The post Changing logos won’t fix problems in public sector – Robert Hinson appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.