Laziness to blame for poor performance by councils in Eastern Province

The Provincial Local Government Office has admitted that most councils in Eastern Province perform poorly.
Provincial Local Government Officer, Mclouid Nyirenda has also admitted that some officers in councils are involved in illegal land allocation.
Speaking during Budget Tracking Programme on Breeze FM this morning, Mr. Nyirenda attributed poor performance of councils to negative attitude towards work and budgetary constraints.
Mr. Nyirenda however, says that government hopes to address this challenge, when it introduces the decentralization programme, which will require management staff to be performance based contracts.
He says that he was trying his best to discipline workers involved in illegal land allocation but that he was limited in taking stringent actions due to government procedures.
And Mr. Nyirenda says that his office last year only received about half of the total amount that was approved to Eastern Province from the 2014 National Budget.
He says that from a budget of 336,000 Kwacha, government approved 205,000 and only released 108,000 Kwacha which resulted in operational challenges.
Meanwhile Mr. Nyirenda says that under the 2015 National Budget, the provincial local government office has an allocation of 215,000 Kwacha and that so far, only 75,000 has been released.