Vincent Khonje

Mchinji, June 6, Mana: After it secured second position in the Local Authority Performance Assessment (LAPA), Mchinji District Council has been urged to remain on course.

Secretary for Local Government in the Ministry of Local Government, Unity and Culture, Richard Hara made the sentiments during the LAPA results dissemination to the districts.

He said the meeting was held to inform the district how Mchinji and other districts have scored and where necessary encourage them to maintain the position if they cannot get the first position.

“The most critical issue would be as the second-placed district they should be able to move to number one. We have seen it elsewhere that councils can be number one or number two but come to another assessment they retrogressively go down,” Hara added.

The Secretary said being number two means the Council does not have many problems but the results have shown that there are a few areas that it has to polish up and the Ministry would provide all the support.

District Commissioner (DC) for Mchinji, Lucia Chidalengwa said there are areas where the Council did not do well and would ensure to make some improvements.

“We have noted the areas that we have done well and those that we have failed. Most of the areas we have not done well are in service delivery like agriculture, health and education. The Directors and Sector Heads have committed that we work together to ensure we deliver the best to the communities,” she said.

Government conducted LAPA for the 2022/2023 financial year from September 17 to October 7, 2023 and these assessments are precursors for the disbursement of Performance Based Grant (PBG) under the Governance to Enable Service Delivery (GESD).

Out of 28 Local Authorities, Mchinji scooped the second position together with Kasungu.