DEPUTY Secretary to the Cabinet Martine Mtonga h a s w a r n e d district heads of government departments in North-Western Province against giving false information to officers verifying the number of workers on the payroll in the region. Dr Mtonga, who is Smart Zambia Institute national coordinator, said the verification exercise is being done in line with Cabinet circular number 13 of 2019.

The circular has directed civil servants who could have left their work stations in various districts to go back to their original stations or risk having their salaries blocked until proper documentation is done. He said the headcount and payroll verification exercise, which has started in the province, will be undertaken countrywide and so far, it has been completed in the Copperbelt, Eastern and Northern provinces. Dr Mtonga said the exercise in North-Western Province will take 14 days, starting Tuesday this week.

He said this on Tuesday when he paid a courtesy call on NorthWestern Province Permanent Secretary Willies Mangimela at his office. Dr Mtonga was accompanied by Civil Service Commission acting chairperson Hillary Chipango, Teaching Service Commission chairperson Stanley Mhango and some directors from Smart Zambia Institute. “Giving false information shall attract certain sanctions.

We don’t want your officials to falsify information because we have seen in certain provinces where we have already gone, people tried to falsify information. “They were being threatened by some civil servants who have left their positions, but still we have caught up with them and sanctions are being meted out by Cabinet Office,” he said. Dr Mtonga urged district heads of government departments to ensure that the information they will be giving to officers on the ground is correct. “Some of these sanctions are going as far as dismissals.

So I would urge you PS that let us not give false information to the officers on the ground and the district heads should ensure that the information we give is correct,” he said. Dr Mtonga said according to the payroll of January 2020, NorthWestern Province had 13,880 civil servants. “This team that has come now is going to conduct a headcount, a total count of that number I have talked about.

“We want to see that people are there and they are in correct positions, in correct salary scales and are doing the work they are mandated to do,” he said. And Mr Mangimela, who was in the company of his deputy, Douglas Ngimbu, Mushindamo District Commissioner Emmanuel Chihili and his Kalumbila counterpart Robinson Kalota, said the payroll verification exercise is important as it will help identify ghost workers in the province.

“This is important in that it will assist us to know the actual workforce in North-Western Province, and those officers who are occupying the rightful positions,” he said. And Mr Chipango said the exercise will help enhance service delivery to the public by ensuring that civil servants are in right positions and salary scales by normali