Dar es Salaam: For many years nepotism, tribalism, favouritism and corruption have marred the employment processes in government agencies, institutions and ministries. But with the establishment of a secretariat within the President's Office - Public Service Management, the problems could be greatly reduced. According to the Office's Principal Human Resources Officer, Mr Stanley Lameck, all government employment opportunities will be co-ordinated by this secretariat.

He says for a long time there has been complaints by the public and employment seekers in particular on how recruitment processes were done in public offices. And this propelled the government to conduct surveys to find out the relevance of these statements and what came up is what made it to establish this department.

"There have been so many bodies conducting this processes as a result loopholes for corruption, favouritism and tribalism were created," he says adding that this led to recruitment of unqualified personnel.

However, this has led to lack of various information such as employment records once it is needed. Mr Lameck says the malpractice has also contributed to decreased public confidence on government offices. "Some people, especially those in remote areas are not sure anymore whether their applications will be considered let alone be received," he said.

Not only were these processes a problem to potential employees but also the government itself in terms of funds as many employment agencies were set up. This has also led to recruitment of some people, who due to lack meritocracy have plunged the government into serious problems by involving themselves in embezzlement.

Lameck says since its establishment in March this year, the secretariat has advertised 595 posts and interviewed more than 1,700 people. These include foreign service officers, surveyors, architects, office attendants, cartographers and technicians.

Following these interviews, those interviewed expressed their feelings towards fairness in the process and according to Lameck, this shows that the confidence towards the government has once again been revived.

However, he tells of the experience of how many interviewees were afraid of oral questions, something that to some extent indicate that there is a possibility a number of already employed people never went through such processes.

"We conduct all interviews in English for all posts except for watchmen and office attendants, although we also ask them very few questions in English, alerting them that not everybody whom they will serve knows Kiswahili."

He says most interviews are conducted in Dar es Salaam but the secretariat goes to relevant regions as well and render services right there, since not all posts advertised could need potential employees to come to Dar es Salaam.

One would ask, if the secretariat conducts interviews, what will prevent it from doing the same things that originally were done by other agencies? The answer is that the loopholes are very minor. This is made possible by the fact that the secretariat offers opportunities (out source) to independent experts to conduct the interviews. "Even the questions we ask are derived from relevant field experts, who are later involved in the interview process," tells Mr Laeck.

Nevertheless, not all government agencies are accommodated with the secretariat, some of them, especially those which operate as parastatals have special permission to conduct their own interviews until the secretariat is fully empowered.

One of the challenges of the department, which of course was supposed to be a relief to applicants, is that of getting feedback once they tender their applications. In this issue, Mr Lameck says the secretariat does that after potential interviewees have been shortlisted and acknowledges the difficult in telling everybody that his/her letter has been received.

"For example, in April this year, we advertised 1,529 posts and received about 10,000 applications, thus this makes it hard for us to give each one a feedback," he says.