The Resident Doctors Association of Zambia RDAZ is calling on President Hakainde Hichilema to personally intervene in what it describes as widespread corruption in the Civil Service Commission’s health worker recruitment database.
RDAZ President Doctor Paul Chibwe says the association has received consistent and credible reports from its members that corrupt officials are inserting, removing and altering names on the recruitment database in exchange for bribes and political patronage.
Doctor Chibwe says the database, which should be a transparent registry of qualified candidates, has instead been turned into a tool of corruption with so called technical faults frequently cited to cover last-minute changes to recruitment lists.
RDAZ has further raised concern over the absence of a publicly accessible shortlisting methodology, the lack of independent oversight of Human Resource Management Committees at district and provincial level, and the continued use of a recruitment database compiled years prior.
The association is calling on Government, the Civil Service Commission and the Ministry of Health to establish an independent database audit mechanism to include RDAZ, the Anti-Corruption Commission and civil society and to publicly release the full selection criteria used in shortlisting candidates.
Dr. Chibwe has also urged that the Anti-Corruption Commission actively investigate and prosecute officials found to have manipulated the recruitment database.
The association says it remains committed to engaging the government and all relevant stakeholders to ensure that qualified but unemployed health professionals are absorbed into the public health workforce.
By Mutinta Hamusankwa
