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WE applaud Acting President Mnangagwa’s pronouncement that Government will begin to recruit young cadres with technical skills to spearhead national economic programmes.This is plausible.

However, we are not particularly short of technocrats in Government, the economic problems that our country is facing are beyond technocrats. Reality is we have hard-working civil servants; in fact they are much more productive than the private sector.

Our Government is probably one of the few administrations that boast top skills with most of the civil service highly educated, skilled and experienced.

We can only mention a few. In the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development, Professor Francis Gudyanga leads the pack with a PhD in Metallurgy Engineering.

The Ministry of Finance is also staffed with highly-trained experts in various disciplines. Recently, the Ministry of Finance released Mr Andrew Bvumbe to join the World Bank.

But what are we doing with all these brains. It looks like Government is failing to utilise the available skills by creating a conducive operating platform between politicians and technocrats.

Outside Government, we are in the midst of lobbying for Mr Thomas Sakala, another highly educated and experienced banker to land the presidency of the African Development Bank.

It is our considered view that Government should focus more on exploiting the skills already in Government before recruiting more. Focus on employing technocrats would be like relentlessly trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole.

With the attendant expenditure squeeze on Government are we going to be able to ably remunerate the new technocrats to an extent that they perform to their best?

We may need to upgrade the already existing civil service, ensure refresher courses to bring them in line with international best practices and meet the demands of the changing global environment. Instead of looking outward let us first empower our hard-working civil service.

Zimbabwe is known for developing detailed well-researched documents. Most of these documents are gathering dust on shelves. The bottom line is that Government is lacking implementation.

We still have not implemented the 1999 Nziramasanga Commission of Inquiry into Education and Training.

Many other informative and productive policy documents are yet to be implemented.

Therefore it is our humble submission that what Government requires are not new technocrats. What Government requires is an implementation matrix for the various policy initiatives already produced.

What is also required is to make the technocrats already in Government sign performance contracts. This will ensure performance and accountability in the civil service. We also need to push for re-engagement with the international community. Without re-engagement the availability of technocrats will not be felt as the country requires fresh capital.

It is important for Government to refocus its priorities. Government’s relationship with the private sector is also very critical.

The private sector provides real time updates to Government on the state of the economy.

These updates should then be used as input into Government’s economic policies. This will ensure that when the policies are enacted there is a total buy in. We urge the Government to refresh the many policy initiatives once developed and work on implementation modalities.
We lack in implementation.

While the Acting President’s idea of Government employing technocrats is noble, we warn that if there is no seam that links these initiatives with implementation, we may remain in the same predicament for many more years to come.

Government should make use of the technocrats and technical know-how in its corridors.

It is not that our Government is lacking technocrats. We beg to differ.

Government should also work on marrying the various pieces of legislation relating to investment.