Q FM Africa's Modern Radio
The Zambia Council for Social Development (ZCSD) says lack of a Decentralisation Implementation Plan threatens Zambia’s decentralisation process.
ZCSD Executive Director Lewis Mwape in a statement notes that while the revised decentralisation policy has adopted various measures to address the shortcomings of the local government system and to improve the quality,delivery,efficiency and effectiveness of public services, the successful devolution does not exclusively depend on national level institutional capacity, but rather depends on the need to make clarity on the roles at national, provincial and local levels in form of Sector Devolution Plan and organizational structure, informed and engaged citizenry, and clear strategy and road map for implementation
Mr Mwape says ZCSD notes a number of concerns which are likely to undermine the effective implementation of decentralisation and in particular devolution such as confusion regarding the functions to be devolved to district level where there is no clear timetable or road map for implementation devolution and this is being perpetuated by limited information on the process.
He says the other concern is with regard to the lack of a Decentralization Implementation Plan (DIP), where the decentralisation process is being implemented without the DIP which has been perpetually under revision.
Mr Mwape states that the DIP revision has not taken into account need for collaborative process among central government, local governments, cooperating partners and civil society
He further notes that without a proper strategy for creation and capacitating of new districts the government has gone ahead to add 29 more districts while the old districts are still struggling to deliver on their mandate due to inadequate capacity in financial and human resource and poor infrastructure.
Mr Mwape says ZCSD demands that government through the Decentralisation Secretariat makes public all information related to the decentralisation and ensure that the government is more transparent and accountable in the manner in which the decentralisation process is implemented.
He adds that government must also finalize and release to stakeholders the Decentralisation Implementation Plan as a matter of urgency to guide collaboration and implementation sequence and timeframes.