By Eric Chiputula:
In a bid to ensure efficiency in the operations of the country’s statutory bodies, government has embarked on an ambitious drive to standardize salary structures and operations of statutory corporations.
This follows President Lazarus Chakwera order to suspend recruitment and renewal of contracts in all statutory bodies pending review of salaries.
He argued the move is aimed at reducing public expenditure in a bid to put the country’s economy back on track.
Following the order, the office of Comptroller of Statutory Corporations instituted a committee comprising of Secretary to Treasury, Principal Secretary responsible for Administration in the Office of the President and Cabinet, Solicitor General, Secretary for Justice and the Secretary for the Department of Human Resource for cause.
In an interview, Comptroller of Statutory Corporations Peter Simbani said the Committee is in the final stages of reviewing the salary structures before releasing a report on the same.
He said among other things, the committee was tasked with the responsibility of reviewing salary structures within the country’s statutory bodies after it was noted that there was a huge disparity in salary structures for parastatals under the same category.
“I can confirm that indeed we are carrying out that exercise right now. As you are aware the country’s statutory corporations are categorized into three. There are those that are fully funded by government and then we have semi-funded that make their own resources but are also supported by government and finally we have those that are fully commercial who make their own resources without relying on government. So we are looking at how we can standardize the salary structures of statutory corporations that fall within the same category under these three categories,” said Simbani
Simbani is of the view that once the exercise is complete it will bring sanity in how parastatals are managing their resources.
