ex-Tsvangirai office staff warned

GOVERNMENT has warned civil servants who were working in the Office of former prime minister Mr Morgan Tsvangirai to report for duty and stop issuing unsanctioned public statements.

Failure to heed the warning would invite charges and/or dismissal.

The group includes Mr Luke Tamborinyoka, who was attested into the public service in 2011 and served as the Prime Minister's spokesperson.

Despite the abolition of the PM's Office following the inauguration of President Mugabe as Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces on August 22, Mr Tamborinyoka continued to issue public statements as Mr Tsvangirai's spokesperson.

He - together with other civil servants working in the same office - relocated from Government offices at Charter House to Harvest House, the MDC-T headquarters.

This is despite a Government circular by Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet Dr Misheck Sibanda last month advising the staffers to report to their employer, the Civil Service Commission.

Presidential spokesperson Mr George Charamba yesterday said Mr Tamborinyoka should abide by rules governing the conduct of civil servants if he wanted to remain in the service or else he should resign.

"If he wanted to pursue a career in the civil service, he is better advised to report to the Civil Service Commission. But also for him to know that he can no longer just speak, there are rules.

"He is not in the President's Office, he is not a Presidential spokesperson, he is not a ministerial spokesperson, so he cannot just speak as if he does not know that July 31 (election date) has come and gone.

"There are instruments to charge such people."

"You do not just open your mouth in the service. He must resign and then he can become a spokesperson of whoever he pleases and no one will ask questions. He must not pronounce himself as long as he is a civil servant on behalf of a politician. He must resign."

A highly-placed source in the Civil Service Commission said the behaviour of some of the civil servants who were working in the then PM's Office was tantamount to political activism.

"You cannot have a civil servant reporting to the headquarters of a political party without communicating that he is no longer a civil servant.

"If they are civil servants, they should know that Harvest House is not their workstation.

"That act by all staff that was working in the Prime Minister's Office to relocate to Harvest House indicates they were never civil servants in the first place, they were political activists serving a political party.

"If you are a bona fide civil servant you will know that your employer is the Civil Service Commission, that you report to Dr (Mariyawanda) Nzuwah and not some secretary of administration of a political party which means upon Constitutional changes you remain in the station under your permanent secretary who in turn liaises with the Civil Service Commission for direction in terms of re-deployment."

Another source said it was not the first time that Government workers were affected by a Constitutional change.

A similar situation happened in 1987 when the Office of the Titular President was abolished to create Executive Presidency.

The source said all workers who were affected by that Constitutional change went to the President's Office where they got absorbed because they knew well that their employer had not been abolished.

"Now, the PM's staff is behaving as if the Constitution has abolished their employer who in this case is the Civil Service Commission," said the source. "What has been abolished here is an office – a workstation.

"Their behaviour is disqualifying them as civil servants because they seem to be exuding greater loyalty to a person than to a bureaucracy which is permanent."

The source said there were rules in the civil service that if one does not report for duty for a given number of days, he or she gets discharged from the service immediately without any ceremony.

"So, their behaviour is putting their career at risk unless they never wanted to be civil servants," said the source. "It is also prejudicing them in terms of their packages."