Government has Thursday challenged relevant quarters in implementation of policies and acts that would foster discipline among negligent and poor under performing civil servants.

Chief Secretary to the Government Hawa Ndilowe made the call in Lilongwe in her opening speech of a-day long workshop on Gender Mainstreaming and Human Resource Management in the Civil Service.

Ndilowe blamed the negligence and poor performance in the civil service system on lack of effective implementation of discipline policies to the poor performers and acknowledgement and reward to the outstanding performers.

She further said this accountability must be observed at all levels from junior to the senior employee and objective performance appraisals be put to effect.

She thus urged the participants of the workshop to consider that as one topic of discussion.

Discussions of the event also circle around gender mainstreaming in the system, a topic which Ndilowe said was a stitch-in-time considering that Malawi is undergoing in a state where the number of men in the public service surpasses that of women.

She said the gender report showed 36 per cent of women in the civil service with only 24 per cent in decision making positions

“This means there is still more to be done if we are to live up to the Gender Equality Act which advocates for a 40-60 women-men percentage,” said the Chief Secretary to the Government.

The workshop has drawn over 50 participants from various government departments including Labour, Gender, and Human Resource Management.