President John Magufuli has ordered cancellation of meetings and conferences in hotels for public servants in yet another shock move aimed at reigning in unnecessary public expenditure.
The new directive was issued in Dar es Salaam in a press conference by the President’s Office (Public Service Management).
The ministry’s spokesman, Florence Temba said the directive was meant to cut unnecessary costs that the government incurs for meetings and conferences held at various venues including hotels. Instead the meetings and conferences will be conducted via video conference, which is a set of telecommunication technologies which allow two or more locations to communicate by simultaneous two-way video and audio transmissions.
This follows another ban announced by the head of state soon after he took oath of office early this month, which limited foreign trips and hefty allowances that come with them.
The ministry spokesperson said that as yesterday the government will not foot any bills for conferences or meetings because the video conference services will be free of charge to all conferences by the public servants.
“The government has been spending a lot of money to hire conference rooms, transport allowances, meals and accommodation for the civil servants who attended such meetings,” he said and adding “The money will now be directed to other development issues because the conferences will henceforth be conducted via video conference.”
Speaking on the advantage of Information and Communication Technology (ICT),he said that a single video conference is capable to connect various participants from eight regions in the country whereby the topics of the conference will be presented to participants who will be able to listen and contribute and make resolutions.
“With this announcement, all public servants will be required to remain at their workplaces throughout the year, and do not need to incur
any unnecessary costs to travel anywhere for conferences or meetings unless they are directed otherwise,” he insisted.
Temba added that specific time for conducting a single meeting will be five hours and the Chair for all conferences will be the Permanent Secretary in the President Office (Public Service Management).
“The organisers of the meetings will have to liaise with the President’s Office at least 48 hours before the video conference day,” he said.
The guidelines for video conference method have already been issued and uploaded on the ministry’s website and by yesterday more than 10 video conferences were conducted and the results were positive, he said.
Speaking at the briefing, the ICT Director in the President Office (Public Service Management) Priscus Kiwango said that for the new system to run smoothly, all government ministries and agencies will have to strengthen their ICT units especially hiring enough IT experts.
Kiwango said all video conference communication will be supported by the National ICT Broadband Backbone (NICTBB), adding that the system is safe because all its infrastructure is coordinated by the government.
On Wednesday this week, this paper reported that austerity measures introduced by President Magufuli, while widely popular, deny the welfare of many civil servants who depend heavily on allowances and per diems for their livelihoods.
The daily allowances for local trips were increased from 65,000/- to 100,000/- for mid level managers and senior officers.
The allowance was also increased to 120,000/- from 80,000/- for directors and principal officers.
For foreign travel, directors and principal officers pocket USD 420 daily while mid level managers and senior officers are paid USD 365.
The ban on travels and now meetings is expected to boost the government coffers and consequently improve service delivery.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
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