The Public Service Commission (PSC) of Namibia expects to finalise the funding estimate required to fully automate the recruitment process in the public service by the next financial year.
The planned automation is aimed at enhancing efficiency, transparency, and accountability in government hiring, while eliminating bureaucratic delays.
Chairperson of the Commission, Salmaan Jacobs, told The Brief that the Ministry of Information, Communication and Technology is currently drafting a legislative framework that will support the digitalisation of recruitment processes across government.
“We are going to have a retreat in June or July to complete that process. The outcome thereof will enable us to understand how much we need to request for the total automation of the public recruitment process,” Jacobs said.
“We can only really know once we have completed this part of having a proper structure in place and then for the next budget, we can budget for that in the next financial year.”
The legislative framework will also provide for the allocation of resources needed to support automation throughout the public service system.
Jacobs noted that the current manual system has contributed to several anomalies at the human resource audit level, including the misplacement or loss of documents, which makes proper follow-up during recruitment difficult.
“People have to go through probation, evaluation, performance assessment for them to be promoted. People would have a problem and be charged with disciplinary issues and be discharged at one public institution. Then they would apply somewhere else and be recruited into the system there, because there is no framework under which we will monitor some of these things,” he said.
In parallel with the legislative framework, Jacobs confirmed that the Office of the Prime Minister and the PSC are developing guidelines to manage e-governance structures.
“We are living in the 21st century where everything nowadays is done digitally. It is something that has been long ongoing. We feel it is high time, during our time, that automation of the public service should become a reality,” he stated.
Jacobs emphasised that once automation begins, the Commission will require increased financial and human resources to successfully implement the system.
“There must be enough people that will run this process itself,” he said.
This comes amid growing concern from job seekers over the government’s continued reliance on outdated, manual form-filling methods for job applications.
