Can whatsAPP control absentism?
Makueni county has announced a new directive that is expected to take effect from 2019.
According to Mohammed Maalim ,the County Commissioner ,civil servants working in various national government agencies and departments will from January 2019 hence forth required to publish their daily activities on WhatsApp.
The directive is expected to take effect in 2019 and is meant to address absenteeism and general sleaze.
All heads of departments are required to publish the daily activities of their juniors “complete with pictorial evidence” on a new WhatsApp group created and administered by Mr Maalim.
“I will personally monitor and make spot checks to see to it that this has been implemented. Where we will detect absence of the head of department, I will write to their respective accounting officers who are expected to initiate action,” Mr Maalim announced on Thursday during the last County Service Delivery Co-ordination Committee meeting this year.
He further instructed heads of departments to ensure that all civil servants under them sign clock in and clock out registers to identify those absconding duty.
The administrator decried the sleaze among civil servants, which he vowed to curb through the new staff management approaches.
“There is no worse corruption than when civil servants sneak from their duty stations while they are expected to deliver timely and quality services. We want to see committed servants of the people in 2019,” he said at the meeting, citing a 2014 executive order by President Uhuru Kenyatta “which directed and empowered county commissioners to co-ordinate the national government business in their counties”.
The monthly meeting brought together civil servants in various national government agencies and departments in the devolved unit and heads of departments.
Mr Maalim also called on civil servants to get out of their offices and meet citizens at the grassroots where they are expected to deliver services.