GOVT, EMPLOYEES HEADING TOWARDS DISPUTE OVER PMS - UNIONS

MBABANE – “Come October, there is a likelihood of the continuous dispute between government and employers.”

This statement was made by the Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA) and Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT), following the official launch of the Performance Management System (PMS). The PMS is an instrument that will assist in the planning, monitoring, measuring and evaluating the performance of those entrusted with public service delivery. The PMS was launched by the Minister of Public Service, Mabulala Maseko, last Thursday and it is expected to come into effect for all civil servants on October 1, 2024. The system started operating at the government executive level last week, immediately after its launch.

TUCOSWA Secretary General (SG) Mduduzi Gina said it was foreseeable that they were heading towards a dispute. Gina said this would not be about the ordinary resistance but simply because of the lack of working tools. He said they realised that government had the desire to measure productivity, which they also wished for because the more there was service delivery within the public sector, the more delivery to the nation. Gina said government needed to be sober and begin the performance measurement on a clean slate and not seem to be running from pillar to post. He said the PMS was an employer productivity measuring tool, to check the input against the output, using all the things that formed the production. The SG said what they needed to know was that government had all the tools they could use to roll out the PMS that would be conducted orderly and not disorderly. Gina stated that what came out as the output with the PMS was mainly what had been placed as the input and if it meant government was now ready to measure performance in a systematic way through the PMS, it (government) had brought adequate means and tools for a measured performance output.

Understand

“Government should understand that a lot will be required from it to make the working systems have an input that they could easily measure.” In any workplace, Gina said, there was a measure of performance, which was a general rule. However, he said reports that they were receiving from committees working in the public sector were that there were no working tools to deliver. According to Gina, even the management category of the workers was linked with the performance of the subordinates, hence cannot be measured. “They are not the implementers but are the supervisors.” For now, Gina said they could not measure certain government officers who lacked working tools, including cars. “Labour inspectors in the country have only two vehicles to conduct inspections countrywide,” said the SG.  He said managers did not execute but managed and monitored the execution. He wondered how the inspectors would be measured as they seemed to be lying idle, due to the lack of vehicles.

Gina said he was making an example with the labour inspectors, as he was in constant contact with them, and found out that they were even using their own cars. Another classic example, he mentioned, was that of some healthcare workers, whom he stated used their funds to purchase medication for patients, outside of government. Meanwhile, SNAT Secretary General Lot Vilakati said they prayed the newly-launched system did not touch upon their members negatively, because they would viciously respond to that. Vilakati was, however, quick to state that the government made it clear that their members would not be affected. He said they were hoping that the issue of the PMS would be placed on the agenda for some items that needed to be discussed on the table. The SNAT SG said he was sure that they would deadlock on the issue once it was discussed at the table. Vilakati said there is currently no public service delivery which needs to be addressed and once that is sorted, everything would be fine.

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