06 Mar 2016

The Minister for Presidential Affairs and Public Administration, Mr Eric Molale says there is no need for review of the scarce skills allowance as there is a standard criteria implemented across different ministries.

Mr Molale said the process of identifying such skills was undertaken through a standardised criteria focusing on six parametres being vacancy rate, number of non-citizens employed by the government, the salary gap between the government and the rest of the market, length of time it takes to acquire qualification, length of time there has been a serious shortage and the attrition rate.

The minister said the standard was applied consistently to assess occupations across ministries. He said an evaluation of the current criteria had been undertaken and had shown deficiencies. These included the lack of weighting of components constituting the criteria and broad categorisation of occupations, making it difficult to drill down to the specific areas of scarcity within the broad occupation.

The minister said another deficiency observed included the award of allowance which was based on qualifications rather than competency. He said their intention was to revise the current criteria in order to come up with a more rigorous, competency based and performance oriented one. The MP for Nata/Gweta, Mr Polson Majaga had asked the minister if he would consider a holistic review of the scarce skills allowance in order to advance consistency and standardisation in its implementation across various ministries. Ends