BY NOKUTHABA DLAMINI
Neglect and failure by the majority of local authorities is crippling the service delivery and the country’s goal to be an upper middle class by 2030, president Emmerson Mnangagwa has lamented.
Mnangagwa said this on Thursday at a programme for the announcement of the 2022 performance evaluation results and signing of perfomance contracts for senior public officials for Fiscal year 2023 at the State House.
Present were Ministers, Permanent Secretaries, Chief Executive Officers for Parastatals and Local Authorities, Vice Chancellors of State Universities among other senior civil servants signing their 2023 performance contracts.
“Performance of local authorities as outlined in the assessment report remains worrisome and a huge drawback in our march towards Vision 2030,” Mnangagwa was quoted saying by the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting.
“While devolution funds have gone a long way in accelerating infrastructure development,neglect and failure by majority of local authorities to focus on their core mandate of service delivery is unacceptable.”
No local authority won the best performance award.
97 out of 101 Public Entities spread on 21 ministries were evaluated and nine exceeded set target, 47 percent met set target, 30 percent were within allowable variance and four percent below set target and below allowable variance.
Best performer award was given to the viice chancellor of Harare Institute of Technology.
At least 20 permanent secretaries were evaluated and one exceeded set target, 15 met set target and four were below set target but within allowable variance.
Overall best performer was John Bhasera in the ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development.
For the cabinet ministers, 19 out of 21 ministers were evaluated and two ministers exceeded set target, 15 met set target and two were below set target but within allowable variance.
Best performer award was given to Anxious Masuka from Bhasera’s ministry.
Runner up award went to Fredrick Shava who is the minister of Foreign Affairs.