Since she was appointed Secretary to the President and Cabinet (SPC) in June 2022, Ms. Colleen Zamba has NEVER enjoyed the support of top government officials. Reason? Her resolve to end thievery and abuse of public resources.
Zamba – a first born daughter in a family of six children from Dowa district – is highly educated, dynamic and energetic manager, possessing extensive experience in administration and economic issues, having held several strategic managerial portfolios in public and private sectors, particularly non-governmental organization (NGOs) such as the United Nations (UN).
During the Bakili Muluzi administration, Zamba worked Principal Secretary (PS) designated as Comptroller of Statutory Corporations responsible for the State Corporation in the Office of the President and Cabinet.
She was then redeployed to the Ministry of Finance where she served as its PS responsible for Economic Affairs before being redeployed again to the Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM) where she served as Special Assistant in the Governor’s Office.
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In 2004, she served as Principal Secretary (PS) in Malawi’s Ministry of Trade, Commerce and Industry.
Zamba also coordinated and chaired UN-Inter Agency Group on development of the National Development Plan of Nigeria and Zambia. This involved cultivating a partnership with private sector, civil society and Development Partners Innovation and Judgment.
In Nigeria, she spearheaded support to the sub national gross domestic product (GDP) computation project, the first of its kind in the West Africa Region, leading to government mandating states to legally establish Statistical and Planning Agencies.
While at the UN, Zamba led the UN inter-agency team on integrating Agenda 2030 and 2063 in the seventh National Development Plan as well as led the UN Technical Team in the production of Nigeria 2020.
With such an impressive record of accomplishment, it was not surprising to see Malawi President Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera spotting her from the UN Office in Zambia and convinced her to return to serve her nation.
Initially, President Chakwera had appointed her to head the Presidential Delivery Unit (PDU) at the Capital Hill, Lilongwe.
When appointing her to the SPC portfolio, the Head of State expressed his trust and confidence in the capabilities of Zamba, and expected her to “work effectively and to bring sanity and necessary changes in the public sector, without fear or favour”.
As the President emphasized, an SPC is instrumental to the implementation of government policies and presidential programmes across the public sector, as well as the efficient and professional delivery of public services to Malawians by the civil service.
Thus, to be an SPC is an enormous task and position of public trust.
“It requires a person of great courage, because you are tasked with changing a culture that many want to keep the same; even the people that praise and support you today do not realize that there are things in this country that need to change that they themselves will not want you to change, and that their applause may turn to attack when the day comes for you to effect the change that affects them,” said President then.
President Chakwera was quick to point out that there “are a lot of hypocrites who want things to change in public service but do not want to change themselves”.
He added that the position requires a person of great honesty who has to tell public servants truths they do not want to hear and confront wrongs in the public sector whose underlying causes people refuse to be honest about.
“Wrongs like stealing from one’s employer, doing a bare minimum at work as long as you have a job, looking for more and more entitlements for oneself instead of opportunities for Malawians,” said Chakwera.
But the Head of State should be the most disappointed and letdown with the battles some top government officials have launched against his SPC.
Since she took oath of office in June 2022, Zamba has been on the battlefronts, fighting thieves and crooked officials who have been plundering and siphoning public resources into their personal accounts.
She has been ridiculed, and condemned for nothing, but the her pursuit for an effective public and civil service. Zamba’s detractors have designed and executed various schemes, including generation and publication of fake news about her, just to finish her off.
Zamba is not a stranger to the front pages of local dailies and weeklies albeit for wrong reasons. As one writer once rightly observed, the SPC has a victim of smear campaign from her first day in office, and she has had to endure the assault from all angles.
But recently, Zamba was vindicated former Energy Generating Company (EGENCO) Chief Executive Officer who was suspended pending investigations on some issues related to the machines. The suspended CEO used the media to fight Zamba, but when the case went to court, it upheld Zamba’s decision.
There was a protracted case where Hellen Buluma missed no day in attacking Ms. Zamba.
Again, being in a patriarchal society where men would want to exert their masculinity and dominance, there are men who feel uncomfortable and threatened by powerful women like Ms. Zamba, and it shouldn’t be surprising seeing how Ms. Zamba has been tormented.
Here is a qualified woman who goes about doing her work as per her powers derived from the Public Service Act, section 17.
Even at that, the media-driven agenda has not even once made an attempt to mention that the said section is her moral guide, making it more and more believable that there lies a collaborative effort somewhere to get her out of the way so that those behind the scheming can install their preferred person who is easy to manipulate.
Sadly, this court of public opinion also doesn’t have time to look into the issues critically and have the facts correct. It is heart-wrenching that in this day of social media, falsehood always wins over the truth.
*The views expressed in this article are solely those of the writer.
